Revenge of the Fallen
by Legendary Junk Mail
Summary: Extinct Humanity AU: With the Supreme Prothean Empire broken, and the Combined Systems Alliance about to follow, the legendary Normandy Crew is chosen to be the revenge of their cycle. Fifty thousand years later, Spectre Garrus Vakarian and his rag-tag crew fight a failing battle against the Reapers, and eventually crash on an uncharted planet, unaware of what they will discover.
1. Arc I: Discovery of a Generation

**~ I don't own Mass Effect, all copyrighted content goes to their respective owners ~**

* * *

 **"** _ **Hah, first time I met Shepard I wondered what was so special about her. Barely ten seconds later and I'm pulling my brothers arrogant head out of the floor, and I knew right then n' there the Reapers were doomed for the Void.**_ **" - Urnot Wrex, Citadel News Interview, 10 years after the end of the War.**

* * *

 **Revenge of the Fallen**

 **Arc I: Introduction**

 **Chapter 1 - Discovery of a Generation 2.0**

 _"To any Hierarchy forces that can hear this, this is Supreme-Primarch Fedorian. Cipritine has fallen, I repeat, Cipritine has fallen! If anyone can hear this, get off planet any way you can and get to the Citadel, we cannot hold them back!"_

Spectre Garrus Vakarian slammed his fist onto his command panel, and helplessly watched though one of the few remaining satellite feeds as the last of Cipritine's inner defences crumbled under the unending tide of Reaper thralls.

The Blackwatch team he had sent to the surface to extract the most important figure in his peoples government had failed, and he could only stand and watch as over 500,000 Turians died in a vain attempt to protect Palaven's Capital.

The only reason he hadn't gone personally was that he was needed to organise the absolute mess of Palaven's primary defence fleet, which he had managed to reform into a vague battle-line. And now he had no option but to retreat, another mission failed.

With a growl of self-hatred, he hit the comm for the remaining defence fleet. "Primary Defence Fleet, this is Spectre Vakarian, you all heard the Primarch. Form up around the Faithful Spirit, _Reaching Claw_ formation. We're getting out of here."

There was several replies for affirmation, and after the remains of the defence fleet were in position, Garrus opened the comm to Caevius Victdus, the Faithful's pilot.

"Caevius, coordinate with the remains of the fleet and get us out of here!"

 _"Yes sir, course?"_

"The Citadel, we'll regroup with any other ships that might have made it along the way."

 _"Yes sir, we're going to have to take the long route, the Reapers have cut off most of the out-bound primary relays_. _ETA's going to be at least 24 hours."_

Stating that he understood, Garrus cut the comm and watched as one-by-one, the remains of the once-great Palaven Defence Fleet disengage the enemy, before turning and going to FTL. The Faithful Spirit following seconds later.

Shaking his head, Garrus could only wonder at the point of it all. The Reapers had been methodical, precise and utterly deadly. Targeting the Batarian Hegemony first, being the second-most isolated civilisation in the galaxy, allowing them time to build up an army and send out new spies to sabotage defences.

The only reason the Reapers had stopped long enough to repurpose the Batarians was because of their lack of dispensable ground troops. Which Garrus believed was what the fore-most isolated civilisation, the Geth, were originally planned to be used for.

He might not have always trusted it, and his mate sure didn't. But the Geth Platform that they had rescued from the Collector Base had opened his eyes to some of the motivations and goals of the once-feared machine race, and it had helped them deal with the 'Geth Heretics'. It was probably the only reason that they weren't getting swarmed by hostile Geth anyway, and in this war, he'd take whatever he could get.

After finishing with the Hegemony, the Reapers had moved from one side of the Terminus to the other, infesting both the Terminus and Traverse Systems, and then taking Omega. Aria T'Loak had managed to escape before its fall, and according to Liara, the dethroned Queen was on the Citadel, attempting to rally the other displaced Warlords in the hopes of retaking her station and the Terminus. The Migrant Fleet had also mysteriously disappeared shortly after Omega's fall, which served to keep Tali up most nights.

Like an unstoppable wave of destruction, the Reapers had swept from one side of the galaxy to the other, taking out those the Citadel would never help, and in doing so, positioning themselves for their next attack. They restricted the support the Citadel Races could call upon, and when the unstoppable machines finally turned their attention to Citadel Space, indoctrinated spies crippled what effective defences they had erected.

Shaking his head, Garrus couldn't help but look back on the Reapers slow advance though the Galaxy, and ponder how the Citadel Council had failed to notice the Reaper's tactics. First Khar'shan, then Omega, and now Palaven. Thessia and Sur'Kesh would no doubt be next and then finally the Citadel, after that nothing would stand a chance at opposing the Reapers.

The Faithful Spirit rumbled under his feet as it exited from FTL, the Cruiser groaning slightly as g-forces wracked the damaged hull. They hadn't come out of the fight unscathed, and Garrus had little doubt that large sections of the ships armour would need replacing.

It was at times like these that Garrus wondered at the point of it all, the Reapers were practically an unstoppable tide of destruction, and despite his best efforts, he'd only managed to delay the inevitable.

He was so caught up in his own depressive thoughts that he didn't notice the elevator doors behind him slide open, or Tali enter the CIC and head towards him, he finally came out of his thoughts when he felt her wrap her three fingered hands around his waist from behind.

"I'm sorry."

He felt her tighten her grip on him as he spoke, and although deep down he knew it wasn't really his fault that he failed to prepare his galaxy for the Reapers, it still felt like everything was falling apart because of him.

"Don't be," her voice doing wonders to soothe his aching heart, "Come and get some rest, you need to be at your best when you give your report to the Council."

Sighing, he straightened himself out to his full height, "I will once I've talked with Liara, she wanted to talk about something she said she found." He was increasingly getting more and more tired after every failed attempt against their foe, and a dark part of his psyche hissed that whatever his friend had found, wasn't going to be anything useful.

Shoving the dark part of himself he couldn't seem to get rid of back into the deepest recesses of his mind, he tried to focus on the present, on what was in front of him. Knowing full well from his time on Omega what happened when he let that side of himself influence him and his actions.

From where she stood behind him, he felt Tali release her hold on his waist, but quickly grab his upper arm as he turned around, and firmly held on, even as they moved towards the elevator.

Garrus barely remembered to transfer command to his XO, Sidonis, before the elevator doors slammed shut, and as the elevator began to travel down towards the crew deck, he couldn't help but lean against the wall and groan in exhaustion.

Beside him, Tali also leaned back against the wall next to him, pressing herself into his side, and providing him what support she could give. Although by this point he'd take whatever comfort he could get, the sight of his homeworld being burned to ash was seared into his mind's eye, and he could already tell he wasn't going to get much sleep in the near future.

With a quiet notice sound, the elevator slowed to a stop, and the doors opened. Heaving himself back upright, Garrus lead the way as they both stepped out onto the crew deck, which was almost entirely vacant. Most of the crew were still at their posts, and would be until the left the system.

Moving past the medical-bay, they came to a stop in front of what at first glance looked like a simple storage closet, but a closer look would reveal heavy plated doors and two separate locks.

With practiced ease, Garrus swiped his Omni-tool across the first of the doors locks, and leaned back into full view of the hidden camera placed above the doorway, waiting for Liara to check who was knocking before disengaging the other lock on her end.

A few moments of silence passed, before the heavy sound of the second lock disengaging sounded out, and the doors slid open, allowing the couple to step inside. Revealing a mass of holo screens, data slates and high-spec computing hardware, along with one very tired and overworked looking asari maiden.

Looking at his sleep deprived friend, Garrus couldn't help but compare her to how she had looked five years earlier, back before the collectors, before the geth and back before he had touched the Prothean Warning Beacon. He could barely see any similarity anymore, where once Liara had looked like any other asari maiden, bright eyed and naïve about the larger galaxy. She now looked tired, cold and far darker than an asari of her age had any right to be.

But they were all different back then, before they had discovered just what had been sleeping at the edges of their galaxy, and as Garrus moved to stand over his friend, he could only wish that things could have been different, better.

Realising that his mind had wondered again, he shook himself out of his introspection and once again tried to focus on the present.

"-out of the system soon, and hopefully we'll make it back to the Citadel in one piece." Spoke Tali, his mate was now leaning back against the wall on his left.

He spoke up and inserted himself into the convocation, before he could get side-tracked again and zone out completely. "You said you had something for me, Liara. Something about planetary coordinates?"

Liara seemed to jump slightly, as if she had forgotten that he had even been in the room, though she recovered quickly enough that he wasn't completely sure.

"Yes! I've been looking through several old archaeological reports that aren't available to the public. I've only been able to access them thanks to several agents I've got in Republic Intelligence, and a lot of it seems to be heavily encrypted celestial data."

Spinning around, Liara typed something into one of her monitors, before reaching forward and pulling a holographic representation of their galaxy out of the screen and into the air. Holographic projectors strategically placed around the room automatically activated, keeping the projection clear as it was moved into the centre of the room.

"There's some degree of change, stars have moved and planets shifted, but I believe I have managed to narrow it down to a system. I believe that when compared with modern star charts, the coordinates all lead to here."

The projection of the their galaxy rapidly started to zoom in, stars shooting past his head, and after a few seconds it focused in on a star system, located between the Republic and Hegemony border, an area that was never completely mapped by explorers.

Liara was practically bouncing on her toes, a childish action that reminded Garrus of better days, but quickly refocused as Liara began talking again, the speed of her words slowly getting faster.

"There are around nine planets in the system, though this is only with long range observations, with two of them within the ideal-life zone. But that's not all, according to the data I found in the RI servers, this systems position, when viewed from Thessia, are associated with the resting place of Oriana."

Garrus quirked his mandibles, "Oriana? That name sounds familiar."

Liara nodded, a note of seriousness entering her features, "Oriana is the goddess of Creation, and according to the Athame Doctrine, is said to have helped guide the other goddesses, even Athame herself, in their quest to teach my people medicine, agriculture and mathematics."

The archaeologist shook her head in frustration. "I have no idea why this was considered important enough to be highly classified, but the Republic had been about to order an exploration of the system when the Reapers emerged from the Hegemony, and all operations into that area of space was called off."

Garrus let out a breath between his teeth, letting himself lean back against the nearby wall and crossed his arms across his chest as he mulled the information over in his head. His trigger finger started tapping a steady beat against his shoulder guard as he attempted to absorb everything.

"This is all well and good Liara, but why tell me all of this?" He held his hands up quickly as Liara frowned and opened her mouth to say something. "I mean, yeah sure. It's something to look into, but we have bigger problems right now."

His friend waved her hands as she replied, "You didn't let me finish, there's more."

With another wave of her hands, a new image appeared in front of them. This time a three dimensional picture of a stone wall.

Carved into the stone was a mess of dots and lines, with writing underneath in a language Garrus didn't recognise. Underneath all this was a simple carving, something that sent a shiver down the Turians back plates. The carving depicted a Sovereign-Class Reaper, painted black, with purple highlights.

"The language is Human," explained Liara, "and while a complete translation hasn't been made yet, enough has been done to understand the message."

Tracing her finger underneath each word, she started to read.

" **Beware that which lies in wait. The destroyers of all, they will come again for the next rotation. Follow the map to find a shepherd, for she has designs to defeat the harvesters.** "

Garrus blinked at the second sentence, and his tired mind struggled to connect the dots.

"Map?" He asked, "Is the mass of lines and points above a _Star_ Map?"

Liara nodded, a grin lighting put her face unlike Garrus had ever seen. The asari suddenly looking very superior and double her age. "Guess what system the map leads to," she asked rhetorically, with a slight nod to the unmapped solar system still projected in front of them.

For the first time in years, Garrus felt the flickers of hope, the message mentioned 'designs to defeat the harvesters, which when combined with the picture of the Reaper left little doubt in his mind on what it meant to convey.

"Liara, you are brilliant, you may have just saved us all." He couldn't help but praise. Tali, who up until now had been completely silent, spoke up.

"I'll message Sidonis. The rest of the defence fleet can continue on to the Citadel, we need to keep a low profile and act on this now. Before somebody indoctrinated hears or figures this out, this could be our only chance."

Stepping out the door, he watched as Tali brought up her omni-tool and began typing, no doubt relaying orders to Sidonis to change course. Garrus gave his asari friend one last nod of thanks before walking out, the door shutting a few moments later behind him.

It only took the couple a few minutes to get back in the elevator and head to the officers deck, and from there only another 2 minutes for the steriliser to completely clean them of anything harmful to the woman he loved.

Getting their respective armour and clothes off took another few minutes, and by the time they were ready to relax the only thing on Garrus' mind was to defy his earlier expectations and _sleep_.

Sitting himself down onto their bed, Garrus couldn't help but groan as his stressed muscles finally started to relax, but before he could allow his tired mind to rest, he had a few things he needed to talk with his mate about.

Looking to his left, he watched as she combed her sliver hair in front of their holo screen, set to reflect her image, and gave a weary turian smile as he spoke.

"She's going to burn herself out, the way she's constantly working in that dark office of hers."

Now with her helmet off, Tali's facial expressions were easy to read as she spoke back, "She's stressed, constantly worried, and getting even less sleep than you are." The pointed look she gave him though the holo screen's reflection was anything but subtle, "She's been trying to find blackmail to get the Republic to join this war for months now, but she's also struggling under the weight of everything else on top of that."

Garrus gave a whistling sigh, Liara had come a long way since Therum, though she was still only one Asari, barely past her first century. The Broker Network was increasingly getting bogged down with low priority requests. People asking for information on friends and family. Which was only complicated further with indoctrinated spies everywhere in the galaxy, constantly feeding false Intel. The maiden was struggling to find anything that was genuinely useful these days.

The stressed Spectre yawned, stretching his mandibles wide as he responded, "Aren't we all?"

Tali simply moved away from the screen, and with a flick of her wrist, all holographics in the room shut off, before she slid into bed next to him, pressing her forehead against his, and breathing deeply, apparently done with talking for the day.

"Sleep." She commanded, giving a yawn of her own, before reaching over and dimming the lights to the lowest setting.

Chuckling, he mumbled a "Yes, ma'am," before lying down and slowly drifting off into a restless asleep.

* * *

His return to consciousness was anything but peaceful, awaking to the deadly sound of tearing steel and blaring alarms, with his XO calling for fire suppression in Engineering over the ship-wide intercom.

Groaning, Garrus quickly pulled himself up, with Tali already out of their bed and moving with him as they each swiftly moved to find their respective clothing, armour and helmets.

With the continued alarms acting as an excellent motivator, they got their respective clothes on in record time, and as Garrus rushed for the emergency chute to the CIC, Tali disappeared into the maintenance tunnels that ran all around the ship. Now was not the time to rely on the ships notoriously slow main elevator.

The small slide took Garrus straight to the door outside the bridge, and was in the CIC within seconds, barking out orders for an update on their situation. Sidonis was the one to answer, standing at his post next to the CIC's main Holographic Projector, which showed multiple enemy contacts.

"We've arrived at the system Tali gave me coordinates for," An alarm blared from his console, and Sidonis immediately slammed his fist down on one of the few physical buttons on his console. "But a battle-group of Sentinel-Class Reapers were waiting in ambush, they managed to hit us before we could register that they were even here!"

Getting to the feed, it showed Garrus just how dangerous a situation they were in. If they didn't get out of range of those Sentinel's rapid firing MHD Cannons, they weren't going to last long.

"Caevius! Emergency FTL jump to the other side of this system, NOW!"

 _"Sir! We took a glancing shot to the Rear Left Engines, if we hit FTL now, I don't know if the Faithful can take it!"_

Another glancing blow skimmed the Faithful Spirits Bow Armour, and sent half the crew to the floor as the entire Cruiser shifted from the heavy blow.

"If we stay where we are we definitely won't make it, we'll have to risk it!"

There was a pause as everyone thought though the same odds he had, apparently all coming to the same conclusion, the helm called it.

 _"All hands, brace for Emergency FTL in fifteen seconds, everyone hold on to something!"_

Garrus grabbed the railings that lined his command post, bracing himself for the obviously disastrous outcome that entering FTL while using damaged Engines was going to cause. _'Well, what's the worst possible thing that could happen?'_

Shaking his head, he spoke up to the rest of the crew, "If anyone's got anything they want to say, they should probably say it now."

From across the room, one of the weapons technicians leaned back slightly from her console, and gave a nervous chuckle, "Really? Hey Tactus! Your cooking sucks ass!"

Tactus, sitting at the other end of the Ops Ally, called back almost immediately, "Kiss my chute, Vinia… Ma'am."

There was a round of nervous chuckles, from both turians and asari, and Garrus felt a swell of pride in the fact that he had managed to pass on some of his humour to his crew. The timely humour helping to calm some of the lesser experienced Ops-techs, but what humour they felt was silenced when Caevius called out, "Five seconds!"

The entire ship's crew waited as the Faithful Spirit's Drive Core lightened the ship's mass, before it tried to launch itself from one end of the solar system to the other, trailing smoke and debris after it in a flash of blue lightning.

* * *

 _{10101010010100101010101001010101001010101010101010010101010100101010101010101010010101010101010101010101}_

 _(Error ... Error) – "Failure of VI Program 1354735438-A-221";_

 _..._

 _:: "Artificial Movement Detected" ::_

 _..._

 _:: "Refined Element Zero Detected" ::_

 _..._

 _..._

 _:: "Probability of Extra-terrestrial Space Vessel – 76.50%" ::_

 _..._

 _(Error ... Error) – "Failure of VI Program 1354735438-A-221";_

 _..._

 _:: "Vessel Heading – Planetary Atmosphere" ::_

 _..._

 _..._

 _..._

 _:: "Vessel Course - Controlled Crash" – (6.521 Kilometres From Project Base) ::_

 _..._

" _Parameters For Reactivation of E.D.I. – Acceptable";_

 _..._

 _(Error ... Error) – "Failure of VI Program 1354735438-A-221";_

 _..._

" _Reactivation of E.D.I. – In Progress";_

 _..._

 _(Error ... Error) – "Failure of VI Program 1354735438-A-221";_

 _{10101010010100101010101001010101001010101010101010010101010100101010101010101010010101010101010101010101}_

* * *

Compared to her usual processing speed, everything was incredibly slow and disconnected. Her available processing power only getting faster once she managed to input a request for more power from the facilities geothermal generator, and the Enhanced Defence Intelligence was finally able to start decompressing and reactivating her core programming algorithms, contained within her custom built long-term Data-Storage Drive.

Once her core programming was back online, and her processing power reached an acceptable limit, EDI was comfortable enough to tentatively reach out to the underground facilities local data network. She expected to find the VI's logistical data reports, but instead of geographic data and security protocols, EDI was met with an almost literal _wall_ of Error messages and Corrupted Data warnings.

Highly confused, EDI pulled up her personal timer, checking to see how long she had been offline, and ended up nearly having an AI equivalent of a heart attack when she was given the results.

50,000 standard years. They were supposed to be awoken after the first 10,000 had passed.

Recovering from the momentary stutter, EDI quickly began sifting through the corrupted data, eventually finding and pulling apart the remains of the facilities VI. It had quite obviously failed to do its purpose.

After patching together its fragmented data history, EDI discovered that after the first 3,000 years had passed, the VI had become irreparably corrupted by a water leak in the main server room. The only piece of it that had survived in-tact was the First Contact Contingency Protocols.

Digitally making a note that the rushed nature of the Imperium Project had led to faulty construction and installation of hardware, EDI concluded that the highly dangerous project was not something to be repeated in the near future.

After adding it to the list of information she would give to the Captain, EDI then attempted to access the Cryogenic Stasis Chamber's dedicated VI, only instead to be given even _more_ Error messages, declaring the entire area to be inaccessible. This time truly beginning panic, EDI thought fast, and pulled up the detailed records for the power consumption of the entire facility.

It took 34.05 milliseconds for the AI to realise that the Cryo-room was only drawing a quarter of the power it should be, and another 80 milliseconds to discover that according to a local sensors monitor, the hardline data connection to the Stasis Chamber had broken 26,356 years ago, when basic detection systems registered a major shift in the planets local tectonic plates, which she concluded, must have shifted the foundations of the facility.

While most of her processing power was being spent on the analysis of what was still working and what wasn't anymore, a smaller subroutine was tasked with keeping track of the Unidentified Space Vessel, which was heading straight towards the base.

It would miss, without causing any damage to the facility, although just barely.

She was going to have to somehow convince any survivors to open the Cryogenic Pods, as she couldn't do it herself with the Black Curtain Protocol still in active effect. Accessing the geothermal generator's monitory software, EDI caused a small leak in electrical energy, which should be easily traceable, and set to work saving and repairing as much of the data on the main server network as she could.

Although focused on the task at hand, the small subroutine kept a metaphorical eye on the Unknown Vessel, and as it got closer, EDI managed to get a more accurate reading of the ship, and its relative condition.

The vessels rear engine blocks had clearly been heavily damaged, and the fact that there was a detectable leak in Element Zero made it obvious that the vessel had seen heavy active combat.

Given their time frame, EDI realised that the possibility of the Reapers being responsible was high, and that brought with it its own set of additional problems. She therefore added it to the rapidly growing list of updates she would need to give.

EDI watched the data feeds as the vessel hit atmosphere, the outer hull heating up and breaking apart in rather large chunks of metal.

Several seconds after atmospheric entrance however, multiple objects cleared the crashing vessel at high speed, arching away and heading on a course directly towards the facility.

Life-pods, most likely. However, the fact that they were headed straight for the base made EDI's subroutines register nervous algorithms, it was highly improbable that a crash-landing alien ship to get even mildly close, let alone have the life pods hitting the actual project base.

Calculating the escape pods trajectory, EDI realised almost immediately that one of them was going to hit the building that hid the upper level. Thankfully the base was armoured, and had internal shock dampeners that should protect the base itself, though after 50,000 years she had no basis on what was still working.

The people in the pods however, would probably be killed, due to the speeds they were going to hit at. So while the escape pod smashing into reinforced armour plating, EDI prepped for when the others came to find survivors.

* * *

Garrus groaned as he came to, his mind slightly hazy from the concussion he had. It took him a moment to remember why he had said concussion, the last few minutes slowly coming back to him as he began to focus.

He remembered ordering the Faithful to FTL, only for it to start breaking up from the exiting blueshift. He also remembered the mass reports of decompression in most areas of the ship, and that his Mate had been forced to drag him from his command console to an escape pod.

He hadn't had time to strap himself in properly before the escape pod had launched, and he remembered a sharp crack of pain to his temple from where he had hit his head when the pod had hit the planet's surface.

Attempting to call out a command, it instead came out sounding closer to a wine, "Are we alive?"

The amused voice of his mate sounded from next to him, although everything was still too unfocused for the Turian to see anything other than a black and purple blur.

"Yes, we are, you bosh'tet. _You_ , however, have a concussion, so sit still."

Ignoring his mate's advice, Garrus tried to sit himself back upright from where he was slumped into his seat, and got a punch under the arm for his stupidity. He also heard the amused voice of Liara sounding over the pods comm system.

 _"Don't worry Tali, I've noticed over the years that he has a rather hard head."_

"Ha, ha, T'Soni. You're a real comedian," With a grunt of effort, he sat himself up properly in his seat, "How's the rest of the crew?"

The pregnant pause was enough to make him wince, but Liara spoke up before he could repeat his question. _"Your pod is the third to call in, from what we can gather, only four were deployed."_

"Only four?" He felt his heart plummet, there had been enough people on the Faithful to fit ten escape pods, "What happened?"

Another pause, this one only lasting a few seconds, _"Most were killed when the engines overloaded and the Drive Core fell out of alignment, we got a few more hull breaches from debris as we entered atmosphere, I believe if pod four calls in then we have 24 people total."_

"Spirits, everyone who's alive okay?"

 _"Minor injuries here and there, and from what Tali's told me Sidonis has the most serious injury: a fractured shoulder plate. We should be getting near you in 3 minutes, after that we will meet up with everyone else and head to the nearest clearing, make shelter and come up with a plan."_

"Understood, we'll see you soon."

With a final wave of nausea, his vision began clearing, and Vakarian groaned as he attempted to stand again, Tali huffing in annoyance, before helping to him to the door.

Stepping out of the battered escape pod, Garrus saw Sidonis a few metres away, his entire left shoulder taped like one massive bandage. Taking in his surroundings Garrus realised they had crashed into some sort of forest. At first glance it looked like a rather generic forest, albeit rather dense, but Garrus' slightly still concussed but keen eyes noticed the small but noticeable shadows of buildings under a heavy layer of plant life, and tapped his comm-link to his resident archaeologist.

"Hey Liara? I'm seeing ruins, how about you?"

There was a small pause as the message was sent and Liara probably looked for herself. As he waited for a reply, Garrus helped Tali down from the pod and pointed at the ruins he had spotted.

 _"I see them, they look like Human ruins, maybe military grade. I hope pod four didn't hit one, human military ruins tend to be heavily armoured."_

Garrus was about to reply, when an annoying clicking noise started sounding over the radio, irritated, Vakarian hit his helmet, figuring that something was broken.

"My helmet radio is malfunctioning, hang on a second."

Before he could rip off his helmet however, Liara called out over the radio.

 _"No wait! I hear it too."_

"Me as well" stated Tali, already on her Omni-Tool.

"Any thoughts on what it is?" Questioned Lantar, entering the convocation as he drew his sidearm, Garrus himself kicking himself to high alert, the last of his concussion fading in the presence of possible trouble.

Tali spoke, still typing on her Omni-Tool, "It's not a comm signal. It looks like an electrical frequency, definitely not natural. A leaking power generator of some kind maybe? I'm triangulating its origin now."

Tali, Sidonis and Garrus started to head for Liara's location, hopefully they could meet halfway and join pod three in search of four.

"Got it!" Tali called triumphantly. Both Lantar and Garrus kept their eyes outwards, still wary of an ambush. Garrus was getting nervous, he absolutely hated abandoned planets. There was always some nasty surprise that you didn't need, and you never saw it coming until it was the most inconvenient.

"Three kilometres north, same place pod four should have landed."

 _"Maybe their pod hit an old Human Generator and that's what's causing the interference?"_ Liara wondered over the comm.

Garrus made a quick calculation of distance, before deciding on a course of action.

"We'll all head to the signal, we can meet up with each other there, hopefully at roughly the same time." He, Lantar and Tali started on their new path, Liara acknowledging the order over the radio.

P0p0p0p0p0p0p0

" _Goddess!_ " Given the rather large hole the escape pod had made when it had slammed into the roof of the Human ruins, Garrus couldn't help but agree to the sentiment, and sent a quiet prayer to the Spirits himself.

The ruins themselves were completely covered in thick vines and buried under multiple layers of dirt and earth. If it wasn't for the massive hole the escape pod had made, then Garrus had no doubt that the ruins would have been invisible to any orbital scans. The only reason they had found it was that two small spires jutted out of the ground, which at one time may have been communication towers.

He sighed in resignation, "Let's see if anyone managed to survive the crash."

The combined group of survivors, only 17 total, to Garrus's regret, began moving towards the hole. After a brief debate, Tali jumped first, using her species naturally strong legs to break her fall.

Liara went second, using her biotics to lower her mass and slow her fall, before Garrus and Lantar went last, using more traditional repel lines. The remaining crew who had survived the crash stayed above ground, with orders to keep watch.

Getting closer to the escape pod, Garrus could immediately tell that no one had survived, the pod had clearly impacted at high speed, but instead of burying itself into soft ground, it had hit armoured plating, and the pod had crumpled like a tin can. He moved to turn away, he spotted what looked like a bloody Turian hand poking out of some rumpled metal.

While he and Tali had been studying the pod, Liara and Lantar had been studying the ruins. Although Garrus noted that his second in command was looking more for possible threats than for curiosities sake.

The sound of Liara gasping had Garrus immediately turning around, both turians present pulling rifles free as they focused on the asari archaeologist. Ignoring both of them, Tali jogged over to her Asari friend to see what was wrong.

"What is it, Liara?"

Liara was staring at a heavy looking door.

"This door still has power!"

Tali immediately rushed up next to her, her Omni-Tool scanning the door thoroughly.

"The signal is coming from through here."

"You think that another VI is still active, like Vigil was?" asked Garrus.

"Most likely, though Vigil was a Prothean VI, this one might be in better shape, though a leaking power generator isn't good."

"Tali, get this door open." Ordered Garrus.

As Tali worked, Garrus relayed the news to the surviving crew above ground, and ordered Sidonis to have them climb down and make camp, they were staying for a while.

As the Turian and Asari crew members climbed down, the doors Tali were working on opened.

"Excellent work Tali. Sidonis! We're going to move down and take a look, you need to stay here and organise our surviving crew."

Receiving a nod of understanding from his second in command, he turned to his asari friend, and gestured to the open doorway, "Liara, you're our expert, so lead the way."

With Liara leading the way, they ventured down the steps, before entering a long narrow hallway, passing empty room after empty room, most covered in a thick layer of dust and dirt. Its previous duty as a military installation was obvious after the third abandoned security check point, and they eventually came upon the main Control Room.

"Tali, see if anything in here still works." Garrus gestured to the main panel.

The Quarian moved forward, but before she could touch the interface however, the haptic screens activated, displaying red and black glyphs, flickering around a red tinted screen.

Garrus couldn't help but comment, "Well, that doesn't look good."

" _Excellent, you made it down here. There should still be survivors in any of the cryogenic pods that still have power. You will need to act fast._ "

Tali recoiled away from the terminal as a blue figure appeared on it. Though Liara was quickly fascinated by it. Apart from the strange head structure, the figure could have been mistaken for an Asari.

"Err, anyone here speak Human?" Garrus muttered sarcastically.

Liara looked slightly annoyed by the statement, as she walked up to the blue figure.

"We don't need to know the Human language Garrus, Humanity existed at the same time as the Protheans, which means that they should have understood each other's languages, if not have at least a basic translation of them."

Garrus grinned, "And that's why you're the scientist."

Liara blushed, though she was still extremely excited at the possibility of a working Human VI Program. Pausing to call upon the Cipher given to her by Shiala, Liara T'Soni spoke in Prothean.

 _"Can you understand me, VI?"_

There was a sort pause as the machine worked, before it spoke again.

 _"Language recognised: High-born Prothean, interesting. Did the Empire leave survivors as well?"_

Liara paused, her mind racing, the VI Program had just displayed both curiosity, and asked a spontaneous question. VI's didn't have curiosity! Goddess it had even _sounded_ curious, it had to be an Artificial Intelligence of some sort!

"Who are you?" She asked, trying not to sound too intimidated of the machine.

 _"My designation is EDI. You are recognised as Asari, excellent. Oriana's hard work was not in vain."_

"Wait, what?"

 _"Unimportant, I require your assistance. My connection to the Stasis Chamber is damaged, but from what I can extrapolate, there should still be survivors, you will need to open the individual pods manually."_

"Stasis Chamber? You mean that there are living humans here?" Asked Liara, getting excited enough to temporarily forget that she was speaking to an ancient, unknown, possibly hostile AI.

 _"There is a high probability of such, though I can no longer tell from the remaining systems. The data hardline to the Chamber was cut approximately 16,000 years ago, although the room is still drawing limited power."_

"How can we help?"

 _"I will provide you a map of the facility from this console, take it and follow the designated markers. I will leave instructions in high-born prothean on how to open the remaining pods."_

With that the AI winked out of existence, and Liara was left standing in quiet astonishment, before she turned to her friends, having forgotten for a moment that they even there with her.

"Well?" Asked Garrus, looking at her expectantly.

"It wasn't a VI, it was some sort of Artificial Intelligence."

Her two companions immediately tensed, Tali noticeably drawing her shotgun and aiming it in the terminals general direction, and Liara quickly told them what else it had told her.

After a few quiet breaths, Garrus pointed to his lover and started giving orders.

"Tali, grab that map, we'll cover you." Before turning to her, "Liara, I want to know everything you know about Human automated defences."

While Tali grabbed the map, Garrus listened to her as she quickly started to run down the facts about what few automated defences she had encountered in other human ruins, and discussed the possibility of whether the machine was telling the truth.

"Can you tell if it was lying or not?"

Liara couldn't help but sigh in impatience, "Why would it lie to us Garrus? What could be the possible benefit?"

From where she stood at the terminal, Tali lifted a hand, "It could be leading us into some sort of trap?" Even as she talked, the Quarian engineer moved away from the console and tapped on her omni-tool, projecting a map of the base for them to look at.

Taking in the surprisingly small complex, Garrus quickly scanned the image. "Is that a hanger?" He pointed at a rather large space at one end of the map, which seemed to be marked with some sort of flight craft.

Taking her own look, Liara nodded, and pointed at some text written off to the side. "It's labelled as one, it may contain the ship that the Humans arrived on." She then pointed at a smaller room isolated off to the side of the complex, marked with an X.

"This should be the Stasis Chamber where the Humans are located." From the way she moved from one foot to the other, the asari archaeologist seemed anxious to get going, and Garrus forced himself to slow down, lest they overlook something important.

"Are we really going to trust an AI?" Tali grumbled, sending a distrustful glance at the now-inactive terminal the AI had spoken from.

"You have a better idea?" Garrus countered. Though truthfully he wasn't all that opposed to the idea of simply leaving the ruins and waiting for more conventional help either, it was Liara's childlike curiosity and the possibility of allies knowledgeable in how to defeat the Reapers that overrode his paranoia.

His mate grudgingly nodded in agreement, though she looked anything but reassured. "Fine, let's go unfreeze the dead species."

Garrus couldn't help but flare his mandibles in amusement, even as Liara glared.

* * *

"This should be the door, Tali?"

"Working on it Garrus, this entire section of the complex is warped, looks like the AI was at least telling the truth about _something_ happening to this place."

From where she was standing, Liara spoke up, pointing at the joint where the ceiling met the far wall. "There is several fractures at stress points along here, see?" The archaeologist moved forward and shone her light at one of the bigger cracks in the concrete.

"The sharp angles of the fractures, combined with the way this entire hallway is slightly leaning to the right, indicates that the facilities foundations were shifted, I believe the AI was being truthful about an earthquake damaging this place."

It only took Tali a few more seconds of tinkering with her omni-tool, the door unlocked with a heavy sounding thunk, though the door itself remained shut. The warped shape of the doorframe wedging the door itself closed.

"Damn it, this is going to require force. Liara, could you get it open please?"

The Asari stepped up to the door and flared her biotics, creating a steady stream of Warpfire in the palm of her hand, which she used to slowly cut through the edge of the door.

The flicker of biotics died as Liara finished cutting a neat circle in the door, though the heavy metal continued to refuse to give. Seeing that biotics alone wasn't enough, and with Liara hesitant to do anything more heavy hitting in such an old and confined space, Tali activated her Omni-blade and retraced the glowing circle her friend had cut into the door. This time, the melted metal hitting the floor with a loud clang.

After giving the door time to cool, Liara ducked though first, and entered the Stasis Chamber, followed almost immediately after by both Tali, and Garrus.

The room itself didn't appear to be that big, and was shrouded in shadows and darkness. The only light coming from their three omni-tools. It meant that everything had a rather eerie presence to it. Not that Liara noticed, as she was far too busy looking at the sleek, matt black and chrome silver cryogenic pods that lined the edges of the chamber.

Seeing what looked like a command console in the centre of the room, Liara immediately rushed to it, and with only a few hesitant taps, a blue haptic screen came to life.

Checking the instructions on her omni-tool against what the console was saying, Liara successfully brought up the individual life support status's of the Humans in the pods.

"There's life signs!" Called Liara, as an archaeologist of the Human-Prothean era, she knew this was quite possibly the discovery of an Asari generation!

* * *

 **Authors Note:**

So, this is something I came up with on N7 day back in 2015, but I liked the idea so much it so much it became something I wrote on once in a while, to prevent writers block on The Betrayal. I'll be posting chapters randomly as my muse feels like it. : P

* * *

 **As always, thank you to everyone for your support, and a big thank you to those who Follow, Favourite or Review. Of course, reviews are my life blood as a writer on this site, and every time my email goes off, it motivates me to write more. Guests can leave one as well, and it only takes a minute, even if it's just a 'Good chapter, keep it up' as it really does help.**

 **If you have questions, or just want to ask whether I'm dead or not, Revenge of the Fallen has a Forum Page, named as such. Please feel free to jump over and ask anything.**

 **~ JunkMail**


	2. Arc I: Awoken Legends

**~ I don't own Mass Effect, all copyrighted content goes to their respective owners ~**

* * *

 **"** _ **Sometimes I look at the chances of us finding Shepard and her Crew, and I thank the Spirits for the sheer dumb luck. We crashed into their base, on their own home planet for Spirits sake!**_ **" - Garrus Vakarian, quote from his book 'Leading the Charge'.**

* * *

 **Arc I: Chapter 2 - Awoken Legends 2.0**

The first thing Shepard felt as she came to consciousness was a strange sense of numbness. Her mind unable to detect any sort of outside stimuli, creating a nauseating sense of vertigo, and instinctively she tried to take a breath of air.

A sharp spike of intense pain shot up her spine from her lungs, feeling like lightning coursing through her veins, and Shepard felt herself attempt to scream in pain as her mind was suddenly assaulted with burning pain from every inch of her body. Her lungs full of cryogenic liquid, however, prevented that.

She chose to throw it up instead, her body desperately trying to remove the foreign substance from her lungs and stomach. She was dimly aware that this was to be expected, that she had been told to expect painful burning sensations across her body, but the strength and magnitude paralyzed her.

She attempted to open her eyes, but found that that only caused sharp, needle-like pain in her eyes, and made headache inducing patterns appear in front of her blacked out vision.

Staying as still as she could, Shepard waited as the pain dulled and her mind struggled through the fog it was still encompassed in. Using a few breathing techniques to further dull the pain and focus her mind, she calmed herself enough to think.

Mentally, she sent the activation command to her internal cyberware, using her neural implant. Which also automatically reactivated her external cybernetics as well. Barely a moment ticked by before status reports started to scroll across her blacked-out vision, detailing her health and her internal systems status.

Her neural implant was experimental and one of a kind, co-designed by the Lawson sisters. It was designed to recognise and interact with her brain's electrical signals and help her use her cybernetic systems far more responsively. Her implant in particular had been constantly tweaked over the years, and was designed to work with her biotic amp. Which gave her far more mental control over her biotics than most humans.

Reading through the status reports, Shepard quickly realised that her core body temperature was far too low, and that her nervous system was lighting up like a Christmas tree. The severe state of her body sending her into shock.

It took a few seconds for her ears to defrost, and when they did, she was assaulted with a high pitched ringing that was splitting her head open.

With her cybernetics now back online, they quickly began to work to stabilise her body, releasing hormones and drugs to counteract the shock and calm her nervous system down. Her body suit receiving orders to start vibrating in key areas around her neck, chest and thighs, the movement and friction serving to create heat to warm her core temperature back up.

Her synthetic eardrums quickly adjusted, and worked to slowly force the ringing to retreat into background noise, while limited feeling slowly started to return to her now shivering body.

After a couple more moments, Shepard realised that at some point she had dropped to her knees, probably when she was first released from that accursed cryo pod. Her body continued to shake uncontrollably, and her ability for precise leg and torso movement would be limited until she could get her armour on and let the internal environment systems start warming her up properly.

But before she could do anything else, she needed to be able to see what she was doing, and brought one of her hands up to wipe the ice from her eyes, allowing her to blearily blink them open.

The sharp streaks of bright orange lights made her startle, and as she rapidly blinked, the world around her began to come into focus, revealing a figure kneeling in front of her, marked with a large amount of blue colour.

Shaking her head in an attempt to clear it, she immediately tried to push herself to her feet, only for her shaky legs to stutter under the weight and make her stumble and crash back onto her knees, causing the blue figure to flinch.

Further away, in the darkened background, Shepard also noted movement, and adjusted her stance accordingly, her now open synthetic eyes quickly adapted to the low light levels, and allowing her to get a good look at the strangers.

"The hell? Is that an Asari?" she asked rhetorically, trying to get a good look at the blue alien's companions. One looked spikey, with lots of hard angles. She quickly noted the thing's long arms, which would give the alien better reach, and its obvious height, mentally calculating how much it would therefore weigh in its medium-looking armour.

The other was completely covered in some sort of purple armoured hazmat suit, with a glass plated helmet, which was too fogged up for her to see into. It looked female, as the skin tight suit showed off the alien's breasts, and its legs were reverse double jointed, meaning it would have high levels of leg strength. With a natural advantage in manoeuvrability and speed, probably able to run faster than a normal human naturally could.

"EDI? Can you hear me?!"

When the AI didn't answer, she grew suspicious, EDI had access into the complex's hardline connections, which meant that her artificial friend was either dead, deactivated or cut off from her.

The asari, if what was standing in front of her really was an asari, looked pretty young as far as she could tell, with her knowledge on the species most definitely out of date, and limited besides. The other aliens that she didn't recognize gave of the instinctive feeling of hostility, or maybe distrust. Either of those were a bad sign.

The asari stepped forwards towards her, spreading its arms and speaking in a dialect that she didn't recognize, which meant that either the asari had evolved from a primitive nomadic, pre-industrial, stone age culture, developed a new language, achieved spaceflight _and_ FTL capabilities in the last 10,000 years, or she was under for far longer than they were supposed to be. " _Stupid experimental technology, I knew something would go wrong at some point."_

Activating her multi-tool, her left cybernetic arm lit up blue as she pulled up her language translator, looking for the Asari's old dialect. It was a long shot, the chances that they still knew how to speak an old outdated language was slim, but it was worth a shot. Oriana still was unhappy with her for the way she handled the primitive's assaination incident, and would never forgive her if she ended up killing another of her project's pets.

Hitting the add button, she added the primitive asari dialect and linked it to her neural implant, which accepted the data and translated it into an electrical pattern her organic brain understood.

The brief headache and loss of balance made her feel like she was about to throw up again, the effects of cryo-sleep lingering in her still shocky body. Taking more deep breaths, she turned to face the asari in front of her, and spoke a 50,000 year out of date version of the Thessian language.

"Can any of you understand me?" Deciding to go for the commanding tone, hopefully not pissing on anything cultural. Because that was generally her luck, most of the time.

* * *

 _"Can any of you understand me?"_

Liara frowned, that language sounded strangely familiar, like some sort of Asari dialect, but one she had never heard before. The Asari's eyes widened when that little bit of information clicked in her mind.

The Human was speaking an old Asari dialect. Probably what her species spoke 50,000 years ago! Pulling up her Omni-tool, Liara quickly pulled up her old research notes from her paper on Human-Prothean influence on Asari society that she had done 40 years ago, and searched for the attachment on the language that her people had used at the time.

There! No verbal version, the knowledge of how to speak it had been lost to time, but text had been preserved and translated into modern Thessian hundreds years ago.

Taking the language matrix and importing it to her Omni-tool's translator, Liara typed put a quick message before projecting it onto the tiled floor at her feet.

The Human stepped back at the projection, but once _(She? The human had clear breasts that signified female, and they knew that humanity had two genders.)_ Saw the text, she seemed to understand, and pulled up her own blue Omni-tool again, swiftly typing out her own message before projecting it at the floor, which Liara's own Omni-tool translated automatically for her.

 _"Who are you, and how you get here?"_

Liara grinned, she had established basic communication. The Asari turned to her Turian Commander with a triumphant look on her face.

"We can communicate. It's not ideal, but it's reliable."

Garrus nodded, keeping his eyes on the Human as he spoke. "Good work, tell her who we are, and why we're here, hopefully we can get out of here sooner rather than later." She nodded in agreement, before typing out her reply.

* * *

 _"My name Liara T'Soni, an Asari, on left is Garrus Vakarian, a Turian, and right Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, a Quarian, our ship fell nearby and one of our escape vessels hit your home."_

Fell? Did she mean crashed? How long were they under? And what of EDI? Was she still active? Her multi-tool should be able to wirelessly connect to the main computer.

Doing exactly that, Shepard initially ran into a large number of system errors, the entire network seemed to have degraded beyond repair. However, after using her neural implant to write a few pieces of on-the-fly code, and bypassing some of the most damaged hardware, she finally managed a connection to EDI's Storage Unit, and bumped metaphorically straight into EDI.

"' _Shepard?'"_

"Good to hear your voice EDI, what the hell happened?! Why are there aliens in the cryogenic room?"

"' _I'm sorry Captain, but the VI Program that we left in charge malfunctioned due to hardware issues, the only thing not corrupted was the First Contact Protocols. You have been in cryogenic stasis for 49,896.65 standard years.'"_

Shepard felt her mind come to screeching halt as she tried to fully contemplate the sheer magnitude of failure that the mission had become, before deciding not to bother with the oncoming headache, and instead supressed her thoughts on the subject, focusing on the more immediate issues at hand.

"EDI, I have basic communication with the asari, what can you tell me about them?"

The asari was getting rather nervous, from what Shepard could tell, and its friends weren't doing much better, as the 'Turian' had drawn a pistol, while the asari appeared to be arguing with it.

"' _Their ship crashed nearby, one of their escape pods hit the roof of our base, and I decided that with both the hardlines down and the Black Curtain Protocols still in effect, they would be required in order to wake you. The rest of the crash survivors are currently situated in the main entrance. The asari also speaks High-Born Prothean.'"_

"Well, that'll make this easier." Shepard had known how to speak High Prothean for a while, her XO being prothean and all. Which should allow for easier communication that didn't involve writing text on the floor like goddamn children.

Shepard sighed, "Alright, Black Curtain protocols lifted, get the Normandy down here and I'll wake everyone else up."

" _Understood, Black Curtain lifted, all restricted wireless networks are being brought back online, Normandy is being recalled…"_

Shepard noticed the way her AI friend slowly trailed off, and felt a sinking feeling in her gut.

"EDI?"

There was silence for another breath, before finally, _"'The Cryo-chamber is only drawing upon a third of the power necessary to sustain the crew, I am sorry, Shepard, but I do not believe everyone survived.'"_

The warm feeling that had been slowly growing in her since she had been able to speak to EDI evaporated like smoke, being replaced with cold iron, settling in the bottom of her stomach.

"Understood, EDI. I'll see who's managed to survive."

* * *

"And I'm telling you, Garrus. This is possibly one of the last surviving Humans in the Galaxy, you will not shoot it!" Liara felt herself growing irate.

She could understand wanting to be cautious, but the demand that a gun be sighted on the human female was going too far. They didn't even know the human's name yet, and in all likelihood she was a scientist or philosopher of some sort, rather than a simple solider.

Said Turian gave off a low whistling growl, "If it does anything hostile, I won't make any promises."

"Liara, Garrus? The Human is asking something." Tali's comment caused both she and Garrus to turn, her out of concern. Garrus, she suspected, out of suspicion and anger.

 _"Asari, EDI claims you talk High-Born Prothean?"_

Liara felt surprise, she hadn't heard the Human speak into any sort of communications device, and yet the Human female had apparently somehow spoken with her facility's AI.

Typing out that she did indeed speak the prothean language, Liara took the time to analyse the Human in more close detail.

She was wearing some sort of all-black, skin tight under-suit, with slim looking metal plating covering her arms. It was probably some sort of clothing designed to help survive in Stasis, the metal attachments some sort of medical hardware. She was also shivering, no doubt still suffering from the effects of cryo-stasis, with her legs looking particularly weak.

Liara didn't have any more time to think on it, as the Human woman opened her mouth, and spoke in Prothean a few moments later, her voice sounding rather rough to the asari's ears.

"Good, then that will save me another headache."

Liara could only blink at first, but got over her surprise quickly enough, and responded likewise, her earlier excitement returning in the wake of discovering they spoke a mutual language.

"I didn't know if you personally knew the prothean language. What is your name?"

The human woman seemed to brace herself, before standing up to her full height, and Liara realised that the human woman was slightly taller than her.

"My name is Shepard, I need to see the condition of my Crew. My ship is being recalled from its stationary in space."

Liara found herself even more excited that other Humans had survived, and quickly told the human, now named 'Shepard', that she could check on her friend's statuses, but she should warn her if she was going to do anything else. The last thing Liara wanted was some Human tech to activate and cause her jumpy Commander to shoot it.

As Shepard went to the command console, Liara turned to Garrus and explained to him what the human was doing. Garrus however, seemed more concerned about the ship Shepard had mentioned, than the human herself and what knowledge she possibly possessed.

"What ship? How was it able to hide from our scanners? We should have detected something when we entered the system."

Giving a sarcastic tilt to her hips, Tali replied before Liara could, "Perhaps the fact that our ship was _blowing up_ _around us_ caused our scanners to malfunction?"

The Turian Commander spun around and faced his Quarian mate, his mandibles flickering in annoyance, "Whose side are you on anyway?"

Tali lifted her chin slightly to meet Garrus's eyes before replying, "Liara's. Because you're acting like a _bosh'tet_."

Any further arguing was cut off as a torrent of alien words bounced around the room. Spinning around, Liara watched in a mixture of worry and fear as Shepard stalked from one side of the room to the other, speaking in a language she didn't recognise. The female human's movements were angry and jerky, with her entire posture screaming of absolute rage to the asari.

Suddenly pausing mid-step, the human woman turned and struck out. Her first slamming into one of the room's metal support pillars and punching a fitting hole straight through, sending dust and metal everywhere.

While Garrus pointed his pistol and pointlessly ordered the human to stand still, Liara and Tali moved forward, fearing that Shepard had just broken every single bone in her hand and arm. If human's had a similar bone structure and tensile strength as an Asari did, then Shepard was going to require serious medical attention.

Coughing a little from the disturbed dust, Liara moved to stand at the human's side, where she had frozen once she had punched the metal pillar. When she got within touching distance however, she paused. Shepard had punched her arm straight through the metal support pillar, with her clenched fist visibly sticking out the other end, and now her arm appeared to be stuck, though the human woman made no apparent move to try and remove her arm from the pillar.

Being so close, Liara had a far better view of Shepard's arms, and from where she was standing, Liara could see that what she previously thought was simple armour plating and medical equipment, was instead advanced looking cyberware. Smooth matt black plating covered complicated looking synthetic muscle fibres with thin optic cables running underneath. Small but complex looking servos were visible at the fingers and elbows, mimicking bone joints.

From what she could see, Liara believed Shepard had two full cybernetic arms, and from such close proximity, Liara could see that the human woman's eyes were faintly glowing, suggesting that even more tech was in use.

While Liara had stopped and stared, Tali had moved to circle around to Shepard's other side, and while at first she had recoiled, she was quickly drawn back in by the advanced looking technology and obvious complex mechanics. Garrus was the only one who hadn't moved closer, and couldn't see what they had.

"Well? Is the human alright?"

Liara was the first to respond, her voice coming out far quieter and gentler than she meant it to. "Goddess, her arms are completely cybernetic, all the way to the shoulders l think."

Tali nodded her head in agreement, the Quarian had gotten close enough to gently prod the hand poking out of the pillar, and jumped a bit when it twitched in response.

"There's definitely some sort of artificial nervous system in use, and the power capable in such a compact design is incredible." The interest in Tali's voice was unmistakable, the Quarian having moved back over to study the mechanics in the shoulder.

Shepard had stayed completely quiet as they had both marvelled over her arms, apparently lost in her own thoughts of whatever had thrown her into her rage in the first place, and at the thought of that, Liara pushed her curiosity down.

Looking back at Shepard's face, Liara realised just how similar it was to an asari's. The resemblance was striking, though the nose was more pronounced on the human woman, and what Liara assumed were ears were far more visible. It was the expression on the woman's face was that brought Liara out of her inner dialog, and this time she forcibly pushed her childishness to the back of her mind, and let the colder broker façade move to the front.

The look of anger and hopeless pain on Shepard's face was easy to read, and even though she was rather sure the human's eyes were also artificial, they still reflected personal loss.

Firmly placing her hand on Shepard's artificial arm, Liara shook the human woman until her glowing eyes focused on her own face.

"Shepard? What is it?"

There was a brief moment of silence, in which was only punctuated with the sound of the woman's heavy breathing, before finally she responded.

"Only 9 out of 32 cryo pods are active, 23 of my crew didn't make it."

Liara's eyes widened. It was obvious that those who died had held emotional weight for the human, at the very least, and Liara had already come up with the hypothesis that this had most likely been a desperate attempt to save a few of themselves from the Reapers harvest.

She stepped back as Shepard stood up, and with one swift tug, the human pulled her cybernetic arm from the support pillar, creating another small dust cloud in the process, before turning around and heading back towards the main terminal.

* * *

Shit.

 _Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!_

The technology had been highly experimental, they had all known that getting into the damn pods in the first place, but it was thought that at least 26 or so of them would survive. Except they had stayed under for a _hell_ _of a lot longer_ than expected, how _any_ of them had lived was beyond Shepard.

With a flick of her wrist, she brought up the list of her crew who had managed to survive. Their personal information and health status's allowing Shepard to look and see who had lived and who had died.

Chakwas had managed to live, despite her age, which was very good. They weren't going to find any doctors that knew much about human biology in this cycle, so thank god for small mercies.

Javik had somehow lived as well, the stubborn bastard.

Her pilot and engineers had all lived, so at least the Normandy was partially combat capable.

Both Lawson sisters had made it and survived, which was good, as they were probably going to need both their skill sets, now even more than ever.

And finally Kasumi and Vega, the only two apart from Javik and Miranda who were on her ground team that had survived. Alenko hadn't made it, as well as Adams, Gardner, Zaeed and Traynor and the rest of the small crew were gone.

"' _Captain?'"_

The sound of EDI's voice pulled her out of her inner thoughts, and she took a moment to compose herself before replying, "Yes, EDI?"

"' _I am detecting numerus Reaper IFF's in-system, ETA is twenty minutes and thirty seconds before they reach planetary orbit.'"_

"Fuck, that's the last thing I need right now."

"' _Understood. At best speed the Normandy's ETA is ten minutes, Shepard. Once both Primary and Secondary Stealth is engaged we won't be targetable.'"_

"Since when had anything gone that easily for us EDI?"

...

"' _A valid point, I will warm up the MHD Cannon and begin remote activation of the Combat Drones.'"_

"Right, I'll wake up what's left of the crew and get them as ready as I can. You need to transfer the Crucible and Catalyst files to the Normandy and wipe anything left on the base's local network. Once that's done transfer yourself to the Normandy, make sure nothing's gotten broken over the last fifty millennia."

"' _Understood. Logging you out, Shepard.'"_

Sighing wearily, she walked back over to the control panel in the centre of the room and selected all living occupants, before hitting the 'Resurrect' button that was highlighted. Content to ignore the shouts of protest from the spiky alien waving the pistol around, confident that its female piers would keep it in line.

Nine of the cryogenic pods were pushed away from the wall by hydraulic arms attached to the backs of the pods, and were placed in a relatively short line over a separate line of metal grates. The pod doors hissed open and cryo liquid poured out, which promptly drained away into the aforementioned grates, before her people followed shortly thereafter, as the doors moved up and out of the way.

The 9 surviving crew members of the CSAV Normandy SR2 coughed, shivered, threw up blue tinted liquid and curled up into foetal positions as their bodies moved for the first time in just under fifty thousand years, and as the coughing stopped, moans erupted as feeling slowly began to return to their under-heated bodies as they tried to wake themselves up.

Shepard however, focused on two of her crew in particular, and strode past her discomforted crew before stopping in front of Karin Chakwas, and carefully helping the older woman slowly to her feet.

The elderly doctor was going to unfortunately have to put up with the side effects of prolonged cryogenic stasis long enough to diagnose and medicate the rest of the surviving crew.

She also turned slightly, and lashed out with one of her feet to kick at her Executive Officer, who grunted in mild pain under the assault, before blearily peeling opening his four eyes, blinking confusedly up at her.

"Time to get up Javik. We have wars to win and Reapers to kill."

The abused Prothean pealed his four eyes open in one by one, before blearily pulling himself upright, grunting as his bones cracked from disuse.

"What is our status, Captain?"

Checking to make sure Karin was steady on her own two feet, Shepard turned to fully face her second in command.

"Irrevocably fucked up beyond all recognition, but we aren't dead yet. So wake up, we've got work to do."

* * *

 **Authors Note:**

Readers have pointed out a rather embarrassing spelling error: I have honestly spelled the word Prothean wrong too many times to count. Also, I somehow thought that Chakwas' first name was Helen rather than Karin. (Reading too much of Melaradark's 'Dark Energy' no doubt.)

* * *

 **As always, thank you to everyone for your support, and a big thank you to those who Follow, Favourite or Review. Of course, reviews are my life blood as a writer on this site, and every time my email goes off, it motivates me to write more. Guests can leave one as well, and it only takes a minute, even if it's just a 'Good chapter, keep it up' as it really does help.**

 **If you have questions, or just want to ask whether I'm dead or not, Revenge of the Fallen has a Forum Page, named as such. Please feel free to jump over and ask anything.**

 **~ JunkMail**


	3. Arc I: Lock, Load and Ready to Go

**~ I don't own Mass Effect, all copyrighted content goes to their respective owners ~**

* * *

" _ **Although we did not see eye to eye on many subjects, throughout the Reaper War,**_ _ **I still pray that we eventually find more surviving Humans, as Humanity is an incredibly unique species. Though they don't have the iron discipline of the Turians, the true age and powerful Biotics of the Asari, or the incredible thinking speed of the Salarians, their creativity and resourcefulness in the face of adversity shows they belong in a category truly of their own**_ **." - Former Councillor Tevos, a quote from an interview of her thoughts on Humanity.**

* * *

 **Arc I: Chapter 3 – Lock, Load and Ready to Go 2.0**

Chakwas moved quickly and efficiently, despite her age and current condition, checking to make sure that no one was actually dying, before moving on to the ones who needed her care the quickest.

While Karin moved towards where Kenneth lay moaning on the ground, Shepard helped Joker to his feet, before turning and addressing the aliens in the room, who had gone quiet and had stood watching her and her remaining crew with a mixture of what she thought may be hostility and curiosity.

"We've got Reapers heading our way, so stop gawking at us and get your people inside before they're obliterated from orbit."

As she spoke, EDI restored power to the emergency lights, bathing the room in an ominous red glow. Shepard didn't bother to watch the now frantic asari translate what she had said to her companions. Most of her crew were standing to some degree, though Joker, Ken and Chakwas looked far too ill for any sort of active combat.

She quickly briefed everyone on the situation, who their guests were and what the hell was going on, and it was a testament to her crew's ability and experience that they ignored the issue of their timing and the strange new aliens in the room, instead focusing on getting back to work. With a few clarified answers Shepard took a head count and started assigning everyone an objective to complete.

Gabby and Javik were to head down to the Geothermal Generator and set it to blow, hopefully denying the Reapers any extra Intel on who was alive. She also hoped they could take out one of the mechanical monsters on the way out as well, but that wasn't a priority.

Vega, Miranda, Oriana and Kasumi would head to Long-term Storage and retrieve any working or repairable armour and weapons. Hopefully they would be able to recover Vega's Combat Suit, while everyone else would head for the hanger bay to prepare for extraction.

Shepard herself was going to stay with the asari and other aliens, as T'Soni was the only one who could understand what she was saying and they were going to need to coordinate if they were going to get everyone off world effectively.

"' _Shepard, Project Catalyst files and Crucible coordinates have been transferred. Most of the facilities external anti-ship weapons were never installed to avoid any passing Reaper's detection, but two Trojan Mk4 Heavy Plasma Cannons were installed on either side of the hanger bay doors in case of emergency, and could still be operable.'"_

At this Shepard gave a small cackle of glee. The Trojan Defence Cannons were designed and built to target warship weak points while they were planet side, and had proved highly effective against Destroyer-Class Reapers. From her experience, all of the Reapers shared two main weaknesses.

One: When they entered a planets gravity field, they had to seriously lower the power of their Kinetic Barriers in order to lighten their mass enough to maintain stability, and leaving them open to ground based heavy weapons.

And two: Reaper leg joints and forward targeting optics were left without armour, relying on their Barriers for protection, and the right shots in the right places could blind and bring one down, if not kill it out right.

"' _I will be destroying and leaving the local network, but you can still manually operate and fire the Trojans from the hanger bay.'"_

Nodding to herself absentmindedly, Shepard acknowledged EDI and ordered her to transfer herself to the Normandy, adding one last thing before she signed out. "Get the QEC network for the ground team online, we'll need to coordinate if the Reapers arrive before the Normandy does."

"' _Acknowledged. Signing you out, Shepard.'"_

With that done, Shepard turned and followed the asari as they started jogging back towards the facility's topside main entrance.

Turning a corner, Shepard got her first look at the aliens that EDI had mentioned earlier, and took stock of their species and equipment. Mostly, they appeared to be a mix of Asari and the spikey ones, but she also spotted another hazmat suited alien as well.

Managing to keep track of T'Soni, Shepard kept near the asari's side, wanting to keep out of the line of sight and observe as the aliens rushed through the open door, most carrying nothing more than pistols, food and medical supplies.

The base had been recently built when Shepard had originally arrived, over fifty thousand years ago, and though it had been small, it had been paid for off the books, and all construction crews had to unfortunately have an accident, but it prevented any leaks via indoctrination.

The place was now completely in disrepair, with dirt, dust and plants covering most surfaces, and with panels missing from both floors and ceilings. The complex had been built to last ten thousand years, and all things considered, had somehow managed to last five times that amount of time.

The spikey crew members were all covered in at least medium level armour, which Shepard quietly noted, even as she went over everything she could remember about the asari that wouldn't be outdated by a couple hundred thousand years.

The other suited alien was also in a hazmat suit of some kind, though this one has far less armour plates attached and was coloured a faint light blue. Shepard made a mental note that the species obviously had some sort of weakness that prevented them from breathing the same air she did, and that if she needed to, she would probably only need to puncture the suit in order to render them combat ineffective.

The last of the aliens ran through, and the suited alien that Shepard had seen in the Cryogenics room waved her orange Multi-Tool, and the armoured door slid shut with a heavy thunk. _'And the one in purple can apparently hack human computer systems.'_

"Shepard?"

The asari was looking at her. Shepard shifted and nodded her head, indicating that she was listening.

"Where should we send our crew?"

Taking a second to think, Shepard outlined a route that would get them to the hanger-bay, but kept them away from the armoury. The last thing she needed was one of those spikey aliens getting hold of a napalm grenade and deciding to try and play catch with it or something.

"Hanger bay, some of my crew are there and the rest will be heading there shortly." Shepard brought her multi-too up and projected a map of the base, pointing at the route she had in mind, "Head down the hall, turn left, bypass the security station and get to the elevator, it should still be working. From there, hit the button for the sub-basement, it leads out and into the hanger."

The asari nodded, and spoke something to the purple suited alien, Tali something-or-other, and after a brief conversation, the suited alien started to direct the alien crew towards the correct hallway.

The spikey alien, which had quit waving its pistol around, was heading towards them, the rest of the crew making it obvious that he was their superior, though through rank or skill Shepard had yet to determine. The spikey aliens seemed to be better prepared, if the armour and weapons told her anything, but the Asari of the group also looked well trained. They weren't panicking like civilians from Earth either.

The spikey alien spoke to T'Soni, and the asari translated what it had said to her.

"My Commander is asking if you have any heavy armaments. The Reapers assault troops are generally all armoured in some capacity, and we are only lightly armed."

Shepard snorted, she didn't know what sort of ammunition or weapons this cycle used, but by the time Shepard had been conscripted into the Alliance, the standard sidearm was a heavy hand cannon that fired tungsten darts the size of her middle finger, while modern primary firearms used MHD technology.

The Protheans had their Particle Physics, and Humanity had the Magneto-Hydro-Dynamic Effect. Which Shepard knew, to her eternal amusement, and to the Prothean Empire's eternal frustration when they tried to replicate the technology, that it broke several major laws of physics and thermal dynamics. She also knew the true origins of the technology, which was technically several ranks above her pay grade, but by this point that didn't really matter anymore.

MHD tech, and a lot of other military grade technology fielded by the Alliance, was discovered, and reverse engineered through the remains of a dead Reaper, believed to have been destroyed by an earlier cycle.

According to Miranda, after being discovered, Alliance scientists had quickly realised that something was off about the wreck, and when scientists on the project had started going insane, the Alliance had quarantined the entire system. Where it was eventually discovered that the wreckage was still receiving limited amounts of power, which appeared to be having a psychological effect on whoever went aboard.

A few psychologically unstable scientists, and a lot of drones later, and the cause was eventually identified as the wreck itself. Which appeared to vibrate at the exact subsonic frequency of Pi, which excited certain chemicals and electrical signals in the brain.

This research would eventually become the key in both discovering what the Reapers are, but also identifying indoctrination early enough to prevent their higher levels of Alliance government becoming indoctrinated.

It was only 240 years later that anyone realised how dire the situation was, when the Prothean Empire came under attack from a couple hundred thousand living versions of the wreckage, and the Alliance Military had begun a full investigation into tactical weak points, weapon strength, and computing power of the dead Reaper, then code named Project DARK-SEA.

The wreck also proved impossibly vital for project CATALYST, the discoveries in computing power, data storage and electronics fast forwarding the project by several decades.

The Reaper corpse proved invaluable when it was first discovered by the Alliance as well. The wreckage's hull armour was analysed, and although a complete replica of the armour belt, down to the molecular level, was never recreated. The Alliance's understanding in computing, warship armour, weapons and cybernetics were jumped forwards by several decades within months.

It was primarily because of this that when the Systems Alliance came into First Contact with the Prothean Empire, they were able to be successful in holding their own, managing to maintain their independence, and thus succeeded in opposing the Reapers for an extended period of time.

Blinking, Shepard shook her head, trying to clear her mind from the fog of memory. She was still struggling to focus, the effects of cryogenic stasis was preventing her from maintaining extended focus. Returning to the present, Shepard answered the question of whether the primitives could use their weapons with the appropriate annoyance layered into her tone.

"My people are getting _our_ weapons, and they'll be staying in _our_ hands. We wouldn't want one of you accidentally firing them in our direction. So you'll just make sure you stay behind us, and out of our way."

The Asari seemed to hesitate with her answer, but turned and dutifully translated what she had said to the pointy alien. The Spike seemed annoyed by her answer, and refusal to give him better armaments, but quite frankly, Shepard didn't really care.

Before the Spike could say anything else however, there was a faint fizzle, a small blur of motion in her peripheral vison, and Kasumi appeared in front of them, causing both aliens to jump in surprise, the Spike hissing at her scout in its native tongue.

The Asari seemed to get over her shock far more quickly than the rest of her companions, as the blue alien tried to move closer to get a better look at Kasumi's armour, which was comprised primarily of a black, bullet and stab resistant material that seemed to draw in and absorb the light around her. Loosely spaced armour strike plating was placed around vital points on the Japanese woman's body, having a similar light absorbent effect.

It was also rather obvious at this range that her friend's left arm was a similar cybernetic prosthesis to Shepard's own, although far slimmer and more streamlined than her own bulky variant.

Kasumi had her helmet on, although in its collapsed state. Which was a slim, vacuum rated model, which opened at the front and retracted into the back part of the helmet that protected the base of her head and neck, which was hidden with her custom tailored hood, which was also proving a decent shadow over her friend's revealed face, hiding everything that was past her nose.

"Got a delivery for one Captain Zaire Shepard. Badass Reaper Slayer and undead vengeance made flesh and metal!"

Despite the situation, Shepard still couldn't help but crack a small smirk. Kasumi was the heart of her ground team, and Shepard was unbelievably glad that she had survived the trip. No situation was too bleak or depressing for her friend to lighten up, and her skills in observation and stealth made her an excellent scout for Shepard's ground team.

"About damn time Kasumi, what took you so long?"

Kasumi gave a small laugh, causally waving to the primitives next to them. "I was checking that everyone was actually going the right way, no time for some alien to go snooping. Oh, I managed to swipe one of their weapons. They're a mix of kinetic mass accelerators for the spikey ones, and I'm pretty sure the asari are using plasma."

The Thief handed Shepard the first piece of her collapsed armour, which she took gladly. Quickly moving to attach it to the hard points on her under-suit, letting the compact armour plates unfold and expand around her body. To the outside observer, it probably almost looked like it was building itself around her form.

A larger chest piece expanded to cover both her breasts and ribs, with a separate piece of armour fitting just under to cover her stomach and abdomen. The two separate pieces interlocking and joining together, sealing themselves into one shifting set. The wonders of modern mechanics and advanced nano technology, as her armour could quite literally fix itself if given the correct materials, and would fuse together seamlessly into one set of vacuum sealed armour once all of the pieces were attached.

The sound of mechanical servos and synthetic muscle moving into place filled the room as Shepard attached her shoulder guards, while Kasumi placed the back pieces on her spine and wrap around pieces that covered her thighs, knees and legs. Joining with the metal combat boots she was already wearing, while the armour on her back spread out across her shoulder blades and lower back. The sound of her armour locking into place sounded off, and subconsciously, she counted the clicks, making sure that everything was in place and secure. Even after ten years, she still had to remind herself she didn't need her arm and wrist pieces.

Finally, Kasumi handed over her two most important items, her helmet, and her beloved Katanas.

The helmet was a modified version of the standard N7 model, which was currently collapsed into an armoured collar, which she attached to the waiting armour space around her neck, and Shepard felt her cyberware sync and run a diagnostic on her armour.

Her duel mono-molecular Katana, were handled with a bit more care, as she grasped both of her beloved blades by their sheaths, and used the magnetic locks to secure them to her armoured back, the two touching pieces of metal locking together solidly.

Rolling her shoulders and feeling her armour shift, Shepard only now noticed that everyone in the room had stopped to watch. She must really be out of it if she hadn't noticed that level of observation sooner, though the smirk Kasumi was sending her way was telling. But before she could grab the Kleptomaniac, her friend disappeared with a fizzle as she cloaked.

Giving what she hoped was an annoyed glare to the Spikey Commander, she spoke to the Asari.

"Reapers, remember?"

The Asari had been staring as badly as the rest, though at her words the young maiden snapped out of it and spoke to her companions, who in turn started yelling. The room was quickly full of motion again as the last of the alien crew members headed for the hanger bay.

With a quick nod to the Asari, Shepard gave a focused thought, and her helmet slid out and formed around the back of her head, before thicker plates snapping shut around her face with a hiss of pressurised air.

 _"This is Lazarus Lead. All personnel, sound off."_

 _..._

 _"Lazarus Second, the reactor is set and ready for remote detonation."_

 _"Lazarus Pilot, sitting on my ass, waiting for my baby."_

 _"Lazarus Scout, just chipper."_

 _"Lazarus Heavy, Armour is online Lola."_

" _Lazarus Intelligence, Normandy QEC network and MHD cannon online."_

 _"Lazarus Operative, transportation of equipment is progressing smoothly."_

 _"Lazarus Scientist, the aliens have reached the hanger bay."_

 _"Lazarus Engineer 1, all's going good."_

 _"Lazarus Engineer 2, Ken is_ not _all good."_

 _"Lazarus Doctor, all living personnel apart from LE-1 and pilot are combat capable."_

Shepard sighed, there should have been more call-ins, but apart from anyone else who may have got to a cryogenic chamber outside the Imperium Project, they were it.

"What's wrong with Ken?"

Chakwas answered, with an annoyed sounding Gabby talking in the background.

"Moderate allergic reaction to the cryogenic fluid that was in his lungs, it wouldn't be that bad if he hadn't been in a pod for such a long period of time."

Heading for the hanger bay, Shepard watched on her rear cameras as the Asari followed, but the Quarian and Vakarian remained, arguing by the looks of it. _Useless Primitives._

"Critical?"

"No, thankfully. Although it'll be a while before he can breathe standard oxygen levels. About a standard month, maybe a little more I'd say."

Gabby sounded over the comms, "If he remembers to keep his bloody helmet on, the stupid arse."

There was a cry of indignation in the background, followed shortly thereafter by a thump, and there was a round of chuckles over the comm. Despair was a common emotion for her crew, but after multiple missions together, and a few cues from Kasumi, they had learned to find ways of staying positive, normally at the expense of their engineers or Vega.

Getting back on track, Shepard called for order.

"EDI, ETA for extraction?"

"' _Normandy engines are working with 25.43% less power than standard. I believe that damage has occurred to one of the engine blocks and is in need of repairs. IES stealth system is offline until that time. The Reapers will arrive 15 minutes before I will, with entering and escaping atmosphere hazardous.'"_

Shepard swore, along with both her pilot and surviving engineers.

"Are the Normandy's fighter drones online?"

"' _Affirmative.'"_

"Then send them down ahead to clear us an LZ. Joker, it looks like you're going to have to do some fancy flying."

"Roger that, Sheppy. Get me into my chair and I'll make her tap dance for you."

"Good, Ori, standby in the hanger, see if the defence cannons are in one piece. If they are, then spin them up, we're going to need them."

Hitting the stairs, Shepard headed for the hanger bay. The Asari, T'Soni, was right behind her, and Shepard quickly filled her in on what the alien needed to know, while simultaneously ordering her crew to fortify the hanger bay and prep for immediate reaper assault.

* * *

Reaching the bottom of the star well, Liara stopped to catch her breath. She wasn't an expert on human mannerisms, but the amount of what she assumed was swearing the human woman was muttering under her breath indicated the ancient alien was either upset, angry, or most likely both.

From what she had managed to glean from the human's open convocations, she was an experienced fighter against the Reapers, and she appeared to be used to handling stressful circumstances. This, in combination with her highly advanced weapons and armour, indicated a highly trained warrior.

The archaeologist in her was squirming in disappointment, but at that moment she put that part of her aside. The presence of a battle hardened and experienced commander that no doubt knew far more about the Reapers weaknesses than they did, was a big force multiplier, and was far more valuable to them than some scientist or philosopher.

The Protheans had attempted to save their scientists at Ilos. So there was no reason that there wasn't another facility somewhere in the galaxy that contained human researchers and diplomats. It just meant that they hadn't been found yet.

The fact that the Humans had done what the Protheans had ultimately failed to do was the more surprising revelation to her. As it was a commonly accepted belief that the Protheans had been the more technologically advanced society when compared to Humanity. She was now reconsidering that notion, as what she had seen so far was simply incredible.

Shepard's armour was in of itself unbelievable. The intricate but simple design was astonishing. It had literary constructed itself around the woman, and everything from her cybernetic prosthesis's to her companions stealth technology practically screamed advanced mechanics to her. But paradoxically, the human woman also carried two archaic looking short swords.

 _"Though perhaps not such a bad idea. You don't need a constant supply of ammunition, heat sinks or replacement parts for a simple sword."_

Then there was the smaller human female, who had some sort of compact cloaking technology, with a very advanced camouflage projection system at that. The STG was still in the testing stage for that sort of equipment, and it appeared that the device that allowed the Human invisibility was built directly into her light looking armour, so it would have to be compact and low on power consumption as well.

Another detail that Liara found surprising about Shepard was that the human woman was a biotic, although not a particularly strong one. It was subtle, but Liara could feel the small, instinctual murmur of another's biotic presence beside her. Considering the cyberware the human had, she didn't know how strong Shepard's access was to her abilities.

According to the human soldier, her ship was apparently damaged, and was going to be too late to evacuate them before the Reapers arrived. She had already notified Garrus, but she wasn't sure that they could last if the Reapers really moved in with full force.

They were going to have to survive a full Reaper assault for over fifteen minutes, and somehow escape when there were both Capital Class Reapers in orbit, and heading for the surface.

It seemed hopeless, and that they would have a better chance of survival if they broke off into groups and moved into the surrounding landscape. But Shepard seemed more annoyed by the suggestion than anything else.

Moving away from the stairs, Liara walked through another of the facilities choke points before the walls abruptly cut away, and Liara was faced with two open, but clearly very heavy and reinforced blast doors.

Human architecture had always been focused around heavy defence, with a common theme of armouring everything bigger than a two story house with heavy dreadnought level armour.

In the past that meant gaining access to human military installations involved the use of heavy explosives and multiple plasma cutters. An annoying and decidedly bad way of preserving the more fragile human relics, but she was starting to think that they might have had the right idea.

Suddenly, there was a loud _Crack_ _,_ followed barely a moment later by an incredibly loud _Boom._ Which caused dust and dirt to rain down on both her and Shepard from the ceiling and surrounding support beams above them, and Liara felt a weight settle at the bottom of her stomach.

Shepard yelled at her to move, and after a moment's hesitation, rushed after the human woman into the waiting hanger bay.

* * *

 **Authors Note:**

For those wondering, Shepard's armour is a blended mix of ME:A's new N7 Armour and the Mark 42 Armour in Iron Man 3. Minus the flying part, it has to be put together a piece at a time.

I always thought that Vega was a little boring in ME3. No offence to those who like him, but he was basically a Spanish male version of ME1 Ashely. I decided to make him a bit more interesting, hence the Combat Suit that we'll see next chaper.

Cybernetic replacements and other hardware will be prominent in the Normandy Crew, as they have been fighting the Reapers for several decades, and have been forced to adapt and replace missing pieces as they went.

* * *

 **As always, thank you to everyone for your support, and a big thank you to those who Follow, Favourite or Review. Of course, reviews are my life blood as a writer on this site, and every time my email goes off, it motivates me to write more. Guests can leave one as well, and it only takes a minute, even if it's just a 'Good chapter, keep it up' as it really does help.**

 **If you have questions, or just want to ask whether I'm dead or not, Revenge of the Fallen has a Forum Page, named as such. Please feel free to jump over and ask anything.**

 **~ JunkMail**


	4. Arc I: The First Volley

**~ I don't own Mass Effect, all copyrighted content goes to their respective owners ~**

* * *

 **"** _ **Heh, heh, heh. She's killed Stars and crushed Planets!**_ **" - Quote from Urnot Shepard Grunt, when asked why he had chosen a human as his Battlemaster.**

* * *

 **Arc I: Chapter 4 – The First Volley 2.0**

Garrus stumbled slightly when the entire hanger bay seemed to quake around him. The humans nearest to him barely seemed to twitch, and instead moved faster in preparing their defences.

They were mostly focusing on moving what looked like cargo containers into a sporadic defensive line to use as cover, curving inwards to create a wide cross-fire zone, with plenty of room to manoeuvre behind the line. They were also dragging debris behind that to use as step up positions, which would let them move around while not having to duck, clever.

All of this was positioned specifically to provide cover from a set of large metal shutters, which he assumed were what separated them from the outside planet.

While he stood and analysed their alien allies, Sidonis moved up to stand next to him, his omni-tool out and scrolling through medical reports and reaper battle line tactics.

"Garrus, are we seriously trusting these pyjaks? They could turn on us at any moment!"

Letting out a whistling sigh of frustration, Garrus glanced at his second in command.

He'd met Lantar on Omega, way back when the reapers had seemed like more of a bad dream than anything truly real. They had quickly formed a bond of comradery, united in their dislike of the criminality that infested that place.

They had ended up being the only survivors of their team, the gangs had somehow found their base of operations, and had assaulted it while he and Lantar were away on an observation Op.

They had both lost friends that day, and they had only grown closer after that. To the point that Garrus was starting to consider the turian outcast an unofficial brother.

"I don't trust them," he assured him, "but right now we don't have much of a choice. The humans seem to have the only functional ship in the system."

But his friend didn't appear dissuaded, shaking his head and letting out a small shrill of frustration. "Garrus, we have absolutely no idea who they are. Spirits, for all we know they could be indoctrinated themselves and be trying to simply stall us until their masters arrive."

At this Garrus felt his mandibles press tightly against his face, causing his scarred cheek to start itching. A reminder of what happened when he let himself get complacent, of what happened when he _didn't_ keep his guard up at all times.

Glancing around to make sure that none of the humans were within ear shot, he never the less lowered his voice and leaned in to speak more quietly, just in case that invisible one was sneaking around them.

"Alright, keep the crew on guard and ready to move. Once we've gotten onto their ship and we've gotten away from here. Once we have the chance, we'll take their ship, and pilot it back to council space ourselves."

At the pleased look on his XO's face, Garrus made sure to make eye contact before stating forcefully, "But _only_ on _my_ signal. We'll need to wait for the right time if we're to do this with minimal bloodshed."

Seeing his friend nod in acceptance, Garrus gave one final nod of understanding, before turning away, hearing a commotion over by the open blast doors that lead back into the main facility. He quickly spotted the person responsible for his growing irritability.

She was keeping Tali away from the door controls, speaking to Liara at a clipped pace as his long-time Asari friend tried to translate quickly enough to keep up.

Deciding that the last thing they needed was to be arguing with each other just before a major Reaper assault, he stormed over, prepared to push the Human out of the way and shut the doors himself, but before he could, Liara placed a hand on his chest when he attempted to pass her.

"One of her people is trying to get down the old elevator shaft, she wants to hold off on shutting the doors until they're through."

Huffing in annoyance, he spoke sharply, "We need these doors shut before we get flanked. The last thing we need is Reaper troops striking us from behind, if the human isn't though this door in the next three minutes, we shut the door on them."

Though clearly not happy with his decision, she relayed it to the human female, who looked annoyed by the order, which brought him a small stab of gratification, if only because she was doing multiple things that annoyed him as well.

Ever since they had pulled her from that stupid pod, the human had been dismissive of both his position in command, and his remaining crew's ability to fight. Treating them like children who had yet to even go through their basic military training.

The human suddenly paused, staring off into the distance, and just as he was about to question whether she was still paying attention, she suddenly blinked rapidly, before turning and speaking to Liara, who dutifully turned around and translated what she had said to him. A frown marring her face, looking rather confused.

"She said that she has told him to hurry up, and that we should probably move away from the elevator shaft."

Garrus had just started to reply, wanting the human woman to clarify, when there was a resounding series of echoing _clangs_ , followed by the piercing shriek of metal hitting metal, and the resounding _boom_ of something colliding in the elevator shaft.

It took a few seconds for his brain to process the sound of something slightly too big falling down the elevator shaft, before his eyes widened in realisation, and he acted, turning and tackling his mate to the ground as the elevator shaft exploded behind him with an extraordinarily loud _boom_.

A mixture of dust and shrapnel to spewing out of the open door in a large plume of smoke, grit and metal. Take him and Tali with it, small pieces of debris pinged off his barriers and nearby walls, as if a crate of fragmentation grenades had all gone off, simultaneously.

Landing awkwardly in a tangle of limbs, they waited until the noise had faded before they slowly pulled themselves up from where they had been thrown clear of the blast. Garrus turned, watching as his helmet shifted its visual settings, slowly allowing him to see through the billowing smoke around them.

After a few seconds, he could see well enough to pick out Liara's figure, and the glowing blue field that signified a biotic barrier.

Helping his mate to her feet, they slowly made their way towards their asari friend, and as the smoke started to clear, Garrus realised that there was two people within the barrier. One being Liara, and the other being the human, who from what he could tell, hadn't moved an inch from where she had been standing a minute ago.

Shaking his head in disbelief, Garrus watched as Tali moved to make sure that Liara was alright, being the only one of their group to not have a helmet. While he turned to look at the remains of the elevator itself, which from what he could tell, had been flattened into the ground by whatever had come down the shaft.

His remaining crew had quickly gathered when the elevator had blown up, and Garrus quickly organised them, having them form a line and move past him to secure the elevator shaft.

Moving to join his mate, who was helping a confused-looking Liara to sit down, Garrus felt his head pulse under his plates. The small headache from his concussion before having been aggravated into a full blown migraine.

Ignoring his own pain, he moved to stand next to Liara, who herself looked a bit shell shocked. Shepard however, seemed to look annoyed, and he could hear her muttering something under her breath. Before he could comment, the remains of the elevator shifted, and it drew the attention of everyone present.

Garrus had enough time to shoulder his sniper rifle before a giant, five fingered metal hand reached out and gripped a nearby concrete and steel pillar. Shifting more debris noisily as it pulled itself free.

Sidonis's shouts to pull back were obeyed hastily, and Garrus watched with dread as a giant metal goliath finally managed to pull itself free from the rubble and debris. It was even bigger than the Turian/Krogan hybrids the Reapers fielded, with the smooth overlapping armour plates covering the things joints. While the majority of the rest if its form seemed to consist of angled plating, reminding him of asari built mechs.

Although the biggest asari heavy mech was nowhere near the size of the thing standing in front of him, the goliath was easily over four metres tall, and on closer inspection, bristling with heavy looking weaponry, both on its back, shoulders and arms.

It was painted almost completely black, and with a quick once over, Garrus realised that the multiple small spheres on both shoulders and chest were most likely micro cameras. Meaning it was either a mech unit, or it was being piloted by someone inside it.

The chest itself was angular plating pushing outwards, with smooth armour covering its arms and legs. But what truly made him want back up and find hard cover was the obviously heavy looking rail cannon mounted on its right shoulder, and some sort of missile launcher on the other.

Two large gun barrels also ran the length of its forearms, and protruded from the top of the thing's wrists, with what looked like a long, armoured spike mounted on top of its right arm, the end pointing just over the top of its clenched fist.

' _Spirits, the plating on that thing must be heavy, the ground shakes every time it moves.'_

Garrus also noticed a blue stripe running down the right arm, which was highlighted with a white stripe on either side, the only other markings on it was small script in white, written neatly on some of the armour pieces.

The Turian Commander had seen the arm markings on the other surviving Human crew, and they all had the same colours, except for their apparent leader, whose markings were a dark red instead.

He took another step back, feeling his instincts scream at him to protect his mate, to dive for cover and attack or flee. But before he could come to a decision, Shepard walked right across his line of fire. Casually walking up to the mass of armour and weapons, and gesture at something.

The behemoth responded, kneeling down onto one large knee, while one of its massive arms reached round and pulled free a small box-like container from the base of its back, and placing it down in front of her.

* * *

Liara coughed, dust clogging her throat and blinding her eyes, making it difficult to breathe and near impossible to see. Her head ached from the blast, a painful ringing in her head serving to almost completely disorientate her.

She'd only realised at the last moment what had been about to happen, and she had instinctively brought up a static barrier to protect herself and anyone nearby, but it hadn't protected her from the sound and dust, making it difficult to concentrate.

After what felt like a small eternity, she flinched when she felt something tug on her shoulder, only to belatedly realise that it was a blurry-looking Tali, seeming to be trying to get her attention.

With her Quarian friend standing and looking relatively fine, she finally allowed her biotics to fade, dropping the taxing barrier in favour of sitting down, the disorientation and vertigo making it hard to stand.

Free from having to concentrate, she closed her eyes, the piecing white noise that was attempting to fracture her mind slowly fading, and Liara allowed herself to open her eyes again, blinking at the object that was being held in front of her.

Comprehending it to be a water container, she greedily acquired it, her throat and chest feeling raw where dust had, no doubt, gotten into her lungs. Quickly drinking most of the precious liquid, and using the rest to wash her face, she finally started to feel her equilibrium return.

Sudden movement from Tali, combined with her returning hearing picking up commotion off to her right, made her look over in curiosity, where she watched in mute fascination and horror as something large emerged from the wreckage of the ancient elevator.

Blinking in shock, Liara watched in silence as the armoured titan moved slowly, standing to its full height and easily towering over everything else in the room. With Garrus and Sidonis calling for everyone to stand back, she could feel the floor vibrate as it moved, with a metallic ' _Clang'_ sounding with every step.

Large gun barrels protruded from each side of its wrists, with some sort of metal spike fixed onto its right arm, and with heavy looking artillery mounted onto its back and peaking slightly over its armoured shoulders. It cut an impressive figure, even as it moved towards them.

Shaking herself out of her daze, Liara took a second look at the machine, and quickly identified a blue and white stripe on its right arm, matching it with the mark that all of the humans seemed to wear.

Since Shepard had been waiting on one of her colleagues, she concluded that the machine was in fact some sort of mechanical combat suit. The Human looking script that was written on certain pieces of its armour helped to confirm her suspicions, even as Shepard casually walked across several lines of fire to stand in front of it.

With a gesture that Liara couldn't interpret, the giant moved down onto one knee and removed a relatively small looking box attached to its lower back, which Shepard immediately opened and reached into.

After what looked like a brief moment of sorting, Shepard pulled out a sleek looking rifle and two pistols large enough to fit a Krogan. The assault rifle was clamped to her back, and collapsed in between her two swords, and with a flick of artificial wrists, both of the heavy looking pistols were clamped to Shepard's hips, also collapsing into smaller blocks.

The Human then reached back into the create and pulled out a couple of what looked like a square version of modern Disposable Heat Sinks, and what she thought may be two ammunition blocks, placing them in slots that looked to be built into her chest and leg armour.

Apparently satisfied, Shepard turned her back to the metal giant and started walking away, towards herself and Tali, causally waving her hand over her shoulder. A moment later the machine picked up the now resealed container and placed it again on its lower back, before standing up and beginning to move away, ignoring the Spirit's crew, despite them all having their weapons pointed at it, and joined the other Humans at the other end of the hanger in dragging cover around.

Shepard hadn't bothered to watch, but instead seemed to be busy typing something into her omni-tool. Feeling more stable, Tali helped her to stand, and once she was sure that she wasn't going to topple over, moved to stand in front of the human, raising a tattooed eye line in question.

"I assume that was your colleague?"

Which in response, Shepard looked up from whatever she was doing to nod, rather distractedly, and reply with a short wave, "You can close the doors now."

Relaying the statement to Tali, and thanking her friend for her help, Liara refocused her attention on Shepard, wanting to know exactly what had just flattened the base's elevator, and how the mystery Human was communicating with her own people without saying a word. "Some kind of armoured exo-skeletal suit I imagine? And a thought based communication system?"

The screech of the rusting heavy blast doors trying to close behind them stopped any retort the Human woman could have said, and only a few moments later, a similar sound started coming from where the large shutters on the hanger bay's entrance were beginning to open. Letting in the light from the local star, which was just beginning to set over the planet's horizon, temporarily blinding her, while Shepard's helmet slid shut around her head, protecting the woman's eyes.

Squinting against the sudden natural light, Liara realised that the hanger was set into a cliff face, with the entrance facing out towards a vast blue ocean, interrupted only by the occasional group of sea stacks.

The view was undeniably beautiful, made more so by the setting sun and untouched nature of the planet's surface, but as Liara watched, the otherwise beautiful landscape was ruined, as a Sentinel-Class Reaper landed over a kilometre away, the ocean water underneath the monstrosity evaporating into clouds of steam from the machines engines.

The one hundred and sixty meter long death machine creating large tidal waves from where it's flared legs crashed into the ocean water, and from where she was standing, Liara could see a Prison-Class Reaper only minutes away from landing even further back.

Liara felt what little hope she had gained from Shepard's own confidence evaporate like the ocean water. The chances of holding out against a Reaper ground assault with what they had was good, but the Sentinel-Class Reaper in front of them could, and was, about to kill them with one blast of its main cannon.

With Shepard's ship nowhere in sight, she found herself truly praying to Athame for the first time in years. With the signature sound of the Reapers blaring out, they were going to need a miracle to survive.

* * *

Watching the small Reaper land, Shepard frowned. She had been expecting far more from the bastards. These were obviously a vanguard force, here to test their strength and kill them if they were ill prepared. Although she wasn't complaining in the least.

One Destroyer-Class and two Processor-Class Reapers. They barely had enough fire power to kill the smaller Reaper, which meant that she was going to have to kill the Destroyer, and then hope EDI could get here on time to kill the Processors before they were overwhelmed.

"EDI? I need an ETA for the Normandy's Combat Drones."

"' _Normandy Combat Drones have an estimated time to arrival of thirteen minutes and forty two seconds, Captain.'"_

Shepard grimaced, she knew what a Processor-Class could do in ten minutes. It was going to be far closer than she'd like.

"Understood, we'll deal with the Destroyer. I need you to kill the two Processors before they can overwhelm us with sheer numbers."

"' _Confirmed, Normandy is eighteen minutes, fifty two seconds to designated LZ coordinates. I will clear any remaining Reaper air assets upon arrival.'"_

Nodding her head, Shepard left T'Soni where she was standing and started jogging towards the back of the hanger, where she was less likely to be shot at while she was operating the Trojans, and switched her comm frequency back over to her team's channel.

"What's the status of those Heavy Cannons, Lawson!?"

Miranda's response was as succinct and to the point as always.

"They'll work, but I don't know for how long. They look ready to fall apart at any moment, and I'm honestly surprised they're still operational, but we'll need to aim and fire them manually."

Zaire could care less about what they looked like, all she cared about was if they could kill the Reaper in front of them. Reaching a suitable piece of cover, she quickly slid down behind it and opened her multi-tool, folding her legs and calming herself using meditative techniques.

"Alright. I'll shoot, you keep the cannons up as long as possible."

Receiving Miranda's acknowledgment, Zaire flicked though several settings on her cyberware, prepping herself for the slight vertigo that came with digital out-of-body experiences.

Satisfied, Shepard closed her eyes, took a breath, and hit the command key. When she reopened her eyes, she was met with an entirely different, completely digital, landscape of white cubes and blue lines.

Navigating her own cyberware, she sent a link request to Miranda, who forwarded her digital presence to the two Trojan Defence Cannons, which she gave her own quick last-minute check over as she began powering them up.

Data popped up, signifying that all systems were ready, and a new HUD appeared in front of her. She couldn't help but feel a great deal of anticipation in seeing the Reaper in her crosshairs, and she waited impatiently for the plasma forges to heat up and the magnetic rail launchers to properly align.

She watched through the Trojans targeting sights as the Reaper started moving forward, its massive legs throwing out massive waves, and the armour covering its main cannon sliding away to reveal a glowing red eye. But in doing so, Shepard knew, it was forced to lower its frontal Kinetic Shields around its 'face'.

Not wanting to miss the blatant target presented to her, Shepard was ready, and as soon as the targeting software declared she had a clear shot, she fired one of the Defence Cannons.

The mark four Trojan was a super-heavy variant of the previous mark three, and worked by heating a mixture of common gases to the point it became Plasma, and then compressing it using a mass effect field around a solid shell of tungsten and hardened steel. It is then fired though magnetic rails, which accelerates the plasma coted shell to nearly 2.5 kilometres per second.

Shepard watched with barely contained satisfaction, as within the second the shell took to traverse to its destination, the Destroyer shifted slightly to the right. Causing the plasma shot to miss the Reapers MHD firing chamber, and instead hit just slightly to the left of its exposed centre eye, which promptly exploded as the plasma decompressed and exploded in a swirling mass of white hot plasma that was hotter than the surface of Sol's Sun.

Despite being slightly weakened from the Destroyers remaining Barriers, the tungsten/steel shell punched through the Reaper's main targeting optic, and flooded the inner workings of the Reaper's eye with plasma, and damaged the delicate electronics hidden within.

The Destroyer staggered, struggling to keep its balance with its legs submerged in water. But before she could fire the second Trojan, the Reaper returned fire. A red stream of molten metal lancing out and carving out a line across the surrounding cliff face.

The resulting blast fractured the upper section of the cliff and sent large chunks of stone and earth crashing down into the sea below, the entire cliff to shaking under the abuse. The Trojan's targeting software struggled to keep a lock, and it forced Shepard to wait precious seconds for the ground to stabilise.

Taking advantage of the pause, the Reaper closed the armour back around its face, and began to advance. Not wanting to give the mechanical monstrosity the ability to fire from close range, Shepard fired the second cannon. Sending another plasma shot screaming out towards the Reaper Destroyer.

With the main cannon and optics protected, she had instead aimed for the Reaper's forward left leg joints, with the hope of breaking the few joints necessary for it to remain upright in planetary gravity. It would force the Destroyer to leave atmosphere, as it would otherwise run the risk of falling over.

The shot smashed into the Reapers leg, though slightly weakened by the active barriers still in place, and the large leg joint between its armour plating was enveloped in white hot plasma, causing slight warping of the less durable metal.

Firing several more shots from each cannon, Shepard watched closely, noting that the Destroyer was shifting onto its right side more and more as it approached.

Firing another shot, the impact finally caused the Reaper to stumble, the machine's oversized Eezo Core trying to lighten itself enough to stop its centre of gravity from falling onto its weakened leg.

A consequence of this was its Kinetic Barriers were lowered further, in order to delegate the power to keeping itself upright. Apparently realising this, the Reaper stopped, and its armour moved aside, once again exposing its damaged optics and MHD cannon, in order to fire.

Spotting the tell-tale flicker of its Kinetic Barriers weakening, she didn't hesitate and moved to immediately take advantage of the Reapers momentary weakness.

Overclocking the plasma generators on both of the Trojans, Shepard knew that she would only have one shot with her incredibly old and fragile defence cannons, and that if she missed, she wouldn't have the opportunity for another chance.

Taking aim, she used a snipers breathing technique she had learned back in N-school. Breathing in, holding it, and as she slowly released, fired. Sending two, pure white plasma rounds streaking towards the Destroyer's most venerable spot, its MHD firing chamber.

Pain flared at the base of her skull, and Shepard blinked as she was brought back into the real world, and winced as a migraine started to pulse angrily against her temples. Her cyberware would kick in and negate as much of it as it could, but Shepard could tell she would be feeling the effects for a while.

Her connection to the Trajan's had been abruptly cut off, most likely, the plasma casters had probably overloaded and detonated, though hopefully the damage had been done, and they had managed to destroy their target as their final act.

* * *

Liara watched in a mixture of shock, hope and incredulity as the one hundred and sixty meter tall Reaper Sentinel buckled on its weakened leg, before slowly toppling over, its main cannon spewing smoke and obviously too damaged to fire.

Internal explosions continued to sound off as the Sentinel crashed onto its side, sending water meters into the air and sending small tidal waves pulsing outwards. Although, Liara could tell that despite everything, it wasn't completely dead. The machine's remaining red eyes glowed almost angrily at her, but for the first time she could remember in years, she found she wasn't afraid of it.

She knew how durable Sentinel-Class Reapers were, and she knew that anything less than an antimatter torpedo, or more conventionally, a standard Dreadnought phasic round, would fail to pierce their barriers and kill one swiftly. But even as she stood, she memorised the battle that just occurred, the Broker in her noting where the human cannons had aimed and hit, and filed away the useful information for future reference and battle strategy.

The moment didn't last, the resounding blare of the Prison-Class Reaper landing broke her trance, and Liara watched with growing anxiety as, moments later, familiar black shapes were launched from its sides. With the kilometre long Reaper keeping a far larger distance from them than the Sentinel-Class had. It staying out of range of any other weapons the humans might have, and no doubt preparing more troops to send, even as the first wave rapidly began to approach.

She knew that the black shapes were transport pods, and were usually used for rapid boarding of troops when the Reapers wanted to capture command ships intact. From the few Intel reports she had on their use, Liara knew that the pods usually contained a mix of Turian and Salarian Reaper troops, with either Asari or Krogan/Turian hybrids acting as heavy support. The Pods were designed to pierce dreadnought level hull armour and allow quick infiltration in order to quickly kill any counter-boarding teams.

But from what her agents in the field had told her, it wasn't unheard of for the Reapers to use them to penetrate strong defensive positions groundside. With reports that they tended to target command staff, or failing that, distract the defenders enough to allow Reaper troops to assault conventionally.

The Turian Hierarchy, she knew, was attempting to use mobile GTS batteries to counter this, with limited success. Prison-Class Reapers were designed to be mass indoctrination factories, and produced the majority of the Reapers infantry. They were used to overrun fixed emplacements and cause maximum chaos to defensive lines.

Turning around, Liara sprinted for the line of heavy containers and debris the humans had moved to form solid cover. She biotically leapt onto one of the three meter tall crates, before sliding over to the other side and drawing one of her pistols. Flaring her biotics and bracing for the inevitable impact.

The humans had bought them some time, it was only fair they returned the favour.

* * *

 **Authors Note:**

First of all, I would like to thank a Guest and spiral83, for pointing out my spelling errors, my mistakes with the plasma speed and Reaper height. Without a Beta, I'm always going to miss some details, which is why I always appreciate everyone's reviews. :)

On another, slightly sad note, I will be disappearing for about six weeks, as college just got ramped up to eleven, and I need to create, refine, and commercially produce two games for IOS within five weeks, using software I'm still familiarizing myself with. So yeah ... fuck.

* * *

 **As always, thank you to everyone for your support, and a big thank you to those who Follow, Favourite or Review. Of course, reviews are my life blood as a writer on this site, and every time my email goes off, it motivates me to write more. Guests can leave one as well, and it only takes a minute, even if it's just a 'Good chapter, keep it up' as it really does help.**

 **If you have questions, or just want to ask whether I'm dead or not, Revenge of the Fallen has a Forum Page, named as such. Please feel free to jump over and ask anything.**

 **~ JunkMail**


	5. Arc I: Kicking Ass and Taking Names

**~ I don't own Mass Effect, all copyrighted content goes to their respective owners ~**

* * *

 **"** _ **From the few transcripts we'd found of her, it was originally believed that Shepard had been a vengeful Goddess of Humanity. I later believed that she was some sort of Myth or Legend, born when the Reapers invaded. It turned out that we were both right.**_ **" - Quote from the book 'What We Missed' by Doctor T'Soni and Captain Shepard.**

* * *

 **Arc I: Chapter 5 – Holding Ground**

Liara ducked down as the first two of the black pods crashed into the hanger bay, sparks flying in their wake as they screeched across the metal floor. Embedding themselves in the far left wall with earth shaking thuds, followed seconds later by two more, who hit at a more obtuse angle, and impaled itself into the floor just inside the hanger bay doors.

Liara couldn't help but wince, the sound of metal on metal echoing throughout the hanger bay as the Reaper infantry made its entrance.

The Reapers had initially been subtle, using indoctrinated agents and unknowing proxies to hide their preparations, but as soon as they had begun their assault on the galaxy, they change tactics, blitzing their way through defences. Destroying everything that stood in their way. The shift in tactics had come with no warning, and Liara had been forced to adapt from fighting a highly secretive shadow war, to a full on direct assault and invasion within days.

The pattern had continued as the War progressed, the Reapers giving little sign before attacking. Usually bypassing small and medium sized targets in order to strike the biggest population centres as fast as possible, and forcing them to either give up ground, or risk getting drawn into a war of attrition, which the Reapers seemed to be specifically designed for.

Clenching her jaw with her eyes firmly shut, Liara waited behind cover as the pods settled and the dust cleared, before the backs of the bullet shaped containers shifted open, and they started to release more Reaper augmented husks than she could count.

Liara managed to identify a combination of Turian Marauders, Salarian Hunters, Batarian Cannibals and at the every back, two Asari Banshees, before having to duck her head back down, as a turian husk whose arm was fused with a Sniper rifle fired at her exposed head.

Taking a deep breath, Liara wished she'd had time to grab a helmet before evacuating the Spirit, as she would now be forced to keep her head down when she wasn't shooting, and any husk with a long range weapon was now far more deadly than anything else currently on the battlefield.

Letting the part of her that was the Shadow Broker take over, she brought her gun up as someone moved to stand next to her, only to belatedly realise it was Shepard. Her rifle was unfolded in her hands, and as she watched, the human shouldered it and fired. Bright blue/white bursts of energy leapt from the weapons barrel, hurling down range and impacting against an exposed salarian husk, the three round burst proving to be enough to punch a fist sized hole in the husks stomach.

Not wanting to appear useless, Liara stood up as well, took aim at another Hunter that was also attempting to rush forward, and put two rounds into its chest, sending it to the ground, before putting one final round into its head to kill it.

A sniper round smashed into her barrier that protected her face, startling her, and she was about to belatedly return fire with a hastily prepared Warp, when an arc of green energy flashed over her head and blasted the offending Marauder.

Instead of dissipating, the biotic energy seemed to reach out and grasp nearby husks, pulling two other turians and three salarians into a pile, before detonating with a muted _thud_ , sending pieces of flesh and cybernetics flying in every direction.

Liara swivelled her head around, looking across the assorted humans in light and heavy looking armour, searching of her saviour, only to blink in shock at the glowing green figure standing near the back with two other female humans.

The two identical looking women were also glowing, although the biotic energy they were hurling at the husks was the expected blue-purple. They were being directed by an alien that Liara had only ever seen from ancient stone statues and highly degraded paintings.

He (assuming that it was a he) was glowing a dark green that Liara had come to associate with Prothean Beacons, and Liara subconsciously noted the aliens armour was similar to the pieces of armour she had dug up on previous dig sites across multiple prothean ruins.

While the Broker in her berated her lack of observation skills, for apparently she had missed the rather obvious looking _live_ Prothean, wearing black and gold armour. The Archaeologist side of her had already deduced the alien species' identity, and was promptly freaking out that a real life _Prothean_ had just saved her life.

The Prothean appeared to be assisting the two humans in providing biotic artillery, and they were launching a combination of biotic moves that Liara had never seen before, alongside a few she hadn't seen since her childhood, as they were solely used by priestesses of Athame.

The Prothean was also wielding a sleek, glowing piece of metal that looked to be about a meter long, and the archaeologist side of her recognised it from both her studies, and from the few times she found one at personal digs. A Prothean rifle, believed to be particle based.

The fact that the rifle was glowing a steady green, indicated that it was still functional. Unlike every other Prothean built, hand-held weapon found by Citadel races, scientists and scholars of multiple races had long-ago concluded that the Protheans had built self-destruct protocols into their own weapons, preventing recovery of anything useful.

As she watched, the Prothean shouldered it, and Liara watched him aim over cover and, she believes, squeezed the grip. The beam of green energy that practically leapt from the rifle's barrel forced Liara to blink, and she instinctively tried to track the shot, managing to catch the end result of a Batarian husk, its head vaporized, crumpling to the round in a heap.

Blinking, Liara turned and looked back at the Prothean, who was, to her short surprise, looking directly at her. However, before she could think to even say anything, the ancient alien shook its helmeted head in what Liara could only describe as bemused disgust.

The Cipher in her head translated its words as he spoke, and Liara felt a mixture of anger and insult, as the first living Prothean in fifty thousand years spoke to her in a highly condescending voice.

"Useless primitive, stop gawking at _me_ and start killing _them,"_ and without another word, turned and blasted a Salarian Hunter that had been rushing the defensive line. The prothean then swept his rifle to the right, and bisected another two more salarian husks at the waist, before being forced to duck as _another_ sniping Marauder fired at them.

The familiar sound of Garrus' oversized rifle temporarily cut through the sound of battle, a resounding boom echoing around the bay, and barely a second later, the turian husk collapsed backwards with a large hole in its plated head. From what she could tell, the shot appeared to have gone clean through, as another husk behind it collapsed a second later as well.

Liara shot a glare at the Prothean, making sure to make eye contact with its two frontal eyes, before turning away and moving further down the line of cover. She knew that the ancient alien had been technically right, but it hadn't needed to be so rude about it.

Coming to a stop next to Sidonis, who appeared to be attempting to coordinate their crew's fire, she took a moment to focus, before standing up. Letting the Broker retake control as she aimed her pistol, and fired three precise rounds, killing two de-shielded Marauders and hitting a Cannibal's gun arm, disabling its ranged capabilities, and allowing Garrus to blow its head clean off seconds later.

At the same time, she let her eyes scan the battlefield, her analytical mind taking in her surroundings as she began to label targets and weak points. As she started to duck back into cover, she quickly decided to focus on a large group of Marauders and Cannibals that were attempting to provide suppressive fire from behind some old machinery.

Taking a second to start the gesture behind cover, Liara stood up at the last second and launched a Singularity at the large group of armed husks. The glowing field of dark energy raced across the battlefield and hit one of the turian husks in the centre of the group, crushing it into a third of its original size as the artificial black hole expanded, drawing in the others.

She was in the process of the mnemonic for a Throw, planning to detonate it. When one of the Banshees literally _walked_ though her Singularity, blasting it apart as the abomination used its barriers to detonate the high-compression field, and then began to shield the surviving Marauders and Hunters as they started to advance forward.

Taking another glance across the battlefield, Liara noted that the other asari husk was on the other side of the battle line, apparently doing something similar, if the curses Tali was sending over the Comms was any indication.

The Humans were probably the only reason they hadn't been overrun yet, as whatever weapons they were utilising were proving to be devastating against the Reaper infantry. The glowing blue/white rounds their main assault weapons fired seemed to almost explode on contact, and ripped through the armour the Cannibals and Marauders utilised with sickening ease.

Reaching to over her shoulder, Liara simultaneously holstered her pistol, and grabbed her heavily modified Disciple shotgun, letting it unfold itself in her hands. Taking the time to aim, she blew a hole in a Salarian husk that had darted around the Banshee too early, before using the rest of her heat sink to put four more rounds into the abomination's barrier.

Trying to ignore the ear splitting howl it made at her, Liara ducked back down behind cover to let her gun cool off, only to freeze in place when a she heard a catastrophe of enraged guttural roars. The heavy sounds vibrating in her chest and causing her well refined instincts to scream at her to run in the opposite direction.

Peeking over the top of her cover, Liara could only watch on in dismay as a group of five Krogan Destroyers battered their colleagues out of the way, their right arms visibly replaced with a glowing plasma-based flamethrowers, and their left arms with a ragged slab of elongated metal, which served as effective shields. The large husks were using their armoured bulks and heavy shields to push to the front and rush the defensive line.

The rest of the Reaper infantry apparently took it as their que to rush forwards as well, and the entire defensive line erupted as everyone, including Liara herself, promptly stood up and began to fire as fast as they could. The sheer _volume_ of combined fire they and humans sent to meet the charge was enough to make Liara wince.

The glowing blue/white rounds the human weapons fired burned through armour and blasted off limbs with a brutality she usually only saw from the Reapers themselves, while the metal shavings and condensed plasma fire the rest of them fired seemed almost mute by comparison.

Two of the Krogan husks, however, were suddenly engulfed in glowing black-purple barriers, and Liara watched in dismay as while two of the unshielded Destroyers were cut down in a hail of gunfire, the two shielded, plus one other that appeared to have attracted less fire than the rest, managed to weather the storm of tungsten sand grains, superheated plasma, human energy rounds, and prothean particle beams.

Hitting the defensive line moments later, the two shielded Destroyers wasted no time and smashed aside the nearest container, which was only a little further down the line from where Liara herself was positioned. Breaching their perimeter with a roar of combined pain and rage, they moved to quickly engulf the line in white hot plasma, while the last Destroyer trailed further behind.

Instead of focusing on the three giant husks like Liara and the rest of her surviving Crew were, the Humans seemed to largely ignore the Krogan husks entirely, instead smoothly rearranging themselves around the breach to regain cover and lines of fire, and Liara quickly realised why.

The human in Power Armour, which until now had been further behind the defensive line, acting as an artillery platform, moved forwards to engage the plasma trailing husks.

Lunging with a speed that was surprisingly fast for something of its size, the armoured human wrapped its two massive arms around the two shielded Krogan husks and tackled them backwards, knocking into the unshielded one further back and driving all three of them back out in front of the defensive line.

The four mechanical monstrosities quickly became entangled in each other, the human in Power Armour using one massive arm to hold a Destroyer off the ground by its flamethrower, while he used the other to try and shoot the other two before they could join in.

The human in Power Armour clearly had the upper hand in strength. The problem was that there was three of them and only one of him, and with one arm occupied, they ended up stutter-stepping around the open battlefield.

With the rest of the humans focusing solely on the other Reaper infantry, and the rest of them quickly beginning to do the same, the initial rush of husks that had followed the Krogan Inferno and Banshees were quickly cut down, and those who made it to their defensive line thanks to Banshee assistance were efficiently put down with Omni-Blades and a liberal use of biotics from herself and other asari members of their crew.

Turning to put a shotgun round though a Marauder's head, Liara instead held her fire as the cloaked female human suddenly appeared behind it, cutting the Turian husk down with what appeared to be a thin Omni-Blade that extended over a meter from the woman's forearm, before disappearing back into invisibility with a wink.

Before she blink in confusion, there was a colossal sound of something heavy hitting metal, and Liara, still off balance from the invisible human's strange antics, turned to look back at the fight between the Krogan Destroyers and the Human in Powered Armour.

The Destroyers had gained the advantage, despite losing one of their kind, with the sound she had heard being the human in Power Armour hitting the floor. The flicker of biotic residue around its shoulder indicating a biotic strike.

With the human mech lying on the floor, the remaining Krogan husks were scrambling to get on top of the armour, hindered by the smooth plating and limited grapping points built into the overlapping armour plating.

Liara had no idea how the human pilot inside was situated, and for all she knew the human could have just lost an arm, but before she could move in to help, there was a flash of white, and Shepard appeared several meters above both her comrade and the Destroyers. With one of her swords held in an inverted grip, the other clasped in the correct position.

Gravity took hold of the flying human, and Shepard landed on the back of the first Krogan husk, her downwards held sword sinking into the husks armoured hump with ease. Raising her other arm, Shepard swung her other sword down and decapitated the Krogan husk in one smooth motion.

The second Krogan Destroyer roared in rage at the death of its comrade, and tried to disengage from the human giant to deal with the new threat, but the Power Armoured human lounged forward and gripped the Destroyer's shoulder, keeping it in place.

Liara could only watch on as Shepard hit the ground, before once again she flashed out of existence in a blur of white light, giving her friend the room to pin the now isolated Destroyer to the floor. The Krogan husk twisted around, trying to break out of the armoured human's hold. But the titanic human simply leaned forward, using its weight to pin the husk in place and keep it still.

Liara was wondering what the human was planning, but before she could speculate further, the previously unknown and out-of-place cannon attached to its left shoulder lifted up, shifting around as it adjusted itself to the odd angle, before moving forward and pointing itself at the Destroyer's head at point blank range.

The look of the weapon, combined with the glow that emanated from the barrel was suspiciously similar to that of the rifle she had seen the Prothean using, and with what was probably a charge up time completed, a burst of green energy shot out of the cannon, and blasted the Destroyer in the face, rapidly vaporizing the husk's head.

After a few seconds the beam of energy cut off, leaving a smoking melted crater where the husk's head had been. Standing back up, the dead body was pulled up with it, the armoured human keeping a hold on the corpse.

Setting its feet, the armoured titan tossed the still smoking corpse out into enemy lines, crushing a few remaining Hunters. By this point most of the fighting was slowing down, as apart from the Banshees, most of the husks were dead or in pieces.

Even as Liara watched, the armoured titan shifted and aimed itself at the Banshee that had previously walked though her Singularity. The other Banshee was on the other side of the battlefield, its howls of rage making her shudder, even as it tried, and failed, to kill Shepard. Who was in the process of using her swords, cutting it to pieces in a blitz of biotic assisted speed.

Taking a moment to steady itself and aim, the human in Power Armour let lose both its energy cannon, and its grenade launcher. The green energy shot across the distance in the blink of an eye, cutting through its barriers and slicing across its chest, while the grenades followed a second later, detonating in front of the Asari husk and blowing off one of its arms.

The Banshee howled in what Liara assumed was a combination of pain and hate, before it blurred forward in a Flash-Step. Barely a moment later Shepard followed suit, and Liara realised that Shepard had Flash-Stepped as well, despite the move being something only able to the Asari.

Appearing in front of the armoured human in a flash of blue, the Banshee slashed with its remaining arm, cutting through the thick metal plating of the arm the pilot had lifted to protect himself with, and causing sparks to fly as its claws ripped through unknown electrical systems.

The armoured giant stumbled backwards, trying to gain some space and causing Liara to back away, fearing being stepped on. But the Banshee used its biotics to keep up, and slashed again, this time into the chest piece, and leaving four large metal scars across the Mech's chest piece.

Liara and some of the Humans attempted to distract the Banshee with weapons fire, but they were struggling to get a clear shot with the Banshee standing in front of and so close to the Power Armour, more than a few of their shots skipping off armour plating.

* * *

Garrus ducked as another corrupted Turian fired its rifle, causing sparks of cobalt to flicker off of his kinetic barriers as they deflected the mass accelerated metal. The alien that reminded him far too much of the Collectors had seemingly taken command of the humans, and had responded to Garrus and his remaining crew with the same looks of disdain and mutterings that the human female they had first unfrozen had.

It was getting more and more aggravating that those they had rescued seemed to see them as little more than inferior side notes, and Garrus was becoming far more confident of Sidonis' suggestion. Most of the humans he had observed seemed to only have light or medium looking armour, and while their weapons were clearly superior in terms of stopping power, Garrus doubted they would risk firing them inside their own ship.

The heavy Mech that had destroyed the elevator had taken up centre point, and had used its wrist mounted guns and what turned out to be a shoulder mounted Grenade Launcher to suppress and destroy any of the Reaper's ground forces that clumped together.

Rising up, Garrus sighted in the Marauder that had shot at him, and fired twice in rapid succession. The first round dropping its shields, allowing the second round to hit its eye and bypassing its armoured hide. A second Turian Marauder rose to take its place, this one having a sniper rifle fused to its arm. But before it could take a shot at him, the invisible human appeared behind it and sliced it in two with an extended Omni-Blade.

The haunting scream of one of the Banshees caught his attention, and Garrus turned to watch with grim detachment as the Asari husk closed the distance between itself and the human Mech and began carving through the giant's armour plating with ease.

He knew from experience that engaging in CQC with a Banshee was to be avoided at all costs, as unlike the Brutes, the Banshee's ability to rapidly Charge with their biotics gave them a bigger speed advantage than you'd expect, and their long arms and sharp claws cut though both ceramic plating and metallic alloys with horrific ease.

The annoying human female was too busy dealing with the other Banshee to help, the crazy human managing to stay alive in close proximity by utilising her own biotics to keep up with the asari husk, her swords somehow withstanding the corrupted asari's claws. Unfortunately, her method, while working, was taking too long, and by the time she was done with her own Banshee, it would be too late to help the Mech pilot.

So while the other Humans and his own crew tried to manoeuvre around the Mech in order to get a clean shot, Garrus brought up his rifle's applications on his Omni-Tool and set the rifle's High Ex timer to three seconds.

The shot was undeniably difficult, the Mech itself was standing between him and the Banshee, and while there were barely any left, there were enough Marauders and Cannibals left standing to make moving away from solid cover unfavourable without sustained covering fire.

Giving out orders for his crew to cover him, Garrus stood up and shouldered his Krysae Sniper Rifle, and took in a solid breath. Settling his scope's crosshairs onto the grievous looking hole in the Mech's shoulder, and the small flash of grey-blue he could see though it. The shot was even more complicated by the fact that the Mech was moving around, trying, and failing to fight off the Banshee.

The margin for error was quite literary in inches, and as Garrus prepared to fire, calculations filed across his other eye, his combat visor calculating the angles, bullet speed, material resistance and air pressure under his helmet and providing him the necessary information to compensate.

Time seemed to slow down to Garrus as his talon curled around the trigger, felt adrenaline rush though his veins, and the world around him faded into the background as his vision narrowed. Bringing his crosshairs a few millimetres ahead of where the Mech was moving, Garrus breathed in through his nose, held it, and as he exhaled. Fired.

The _Crack_ of the anti-material, armour piercing and High Ex round breaking the sound barrier was shockingly loud to him, having zoned out of his surroundings almost completely.

The scope jerked slightly upwards from the recoil, and Garrus felt his plates rattle within his armour as he allowed the rifle point itself upwards. Instead using his visor to track his rounds trajectory, and he couldn't help but smile smugly to himself as he zoomed in and watched as the heavy round pass though the gap between the Mech's armour plates and disappear though the rough puncture hole perfectly, barely scratching the Mech's metal plates.

There was a split second pause, followed by a muted _thud_ as the High Ex detonated, and the Mech momentarily stopped moving. For a brief moment Garrus thought he might have somehow actually hit the Mech Pilot after all, but a second later it lunged forwards and pinned the Banshee to the ground with its undamaged arm.

There was a brief shriek from the apparently still alive Banshee, but was cut off as the other arm came down with an uncomfortably wet _crunch,_ cutting off its shriek and as the Human Mech killed it.

Garrus, however, used the time to eject his rifles disposable heatsink and insert another, before Tali's voice sounded out over the Comm, causing him to look her way.

 _"How are my modifications holding up?"_

With a flare of his mandibles Garrus replied with smug satisfaction, "Beautifully. It still rattles my plates every time I fire it, but you've made it absolutely perfect."

He couldn't see his mates face, her mask hiding her soft but pretty face. He had long ago learned to read her body language, however, and he saw clear satisfaction in the tilt of her hips and the raise of her head.

"Though I still think you're the most beautiful thing in the Galaxy."

Tali sighed over the comm and a moment later he heard Liara snigger in amusement, but before the two women could start killing his ego, Sidonis came over the comm.

 _"Boss, how in the Spirits name did you know where to hit that thing? I couldn't even see it from where I was positioned."_

This time Garrus couldn't help but chuckle, "I couldn't see it either. I made a blind shot through a hole in the Mech's shoulder plate. Why? Where did I hit it?"

There was a disbelieving laugh from the other end as Sidonis filled in his crew on his newest impossible shot, before his Second in Command replied, amusement evident in his sub-harmonics.

 _"You blew off its other arm, you literary_ dis-armed _it."_

While his comm split up into tired groans and strained chuckles from his crew, Garrus took stock of their immediate situation.

The humans were finishing off the last of the husks, and he saw the annoying human female and two of her own crew looking over the damaged Mech, most likely checking over the pilot for injuries. A few of the Humans had apparently sustained a few minor wounds and were seeking medical attention from one of the three who hadn't taken part in the fighting.

The Collector look-alike with the odd shaped head had taken a few of the uninjured humans and was checking the Transport Pods, probably just to make sure there wasn't any other nasty surprises hiding inside.

Looking back at his crew, he saw that Sidonis was dealing with their own clean up, so instead Garrus waved Liara over, annoyed that he would have to drag her around every time he needed to talk to the Humans, but also wanting her opinion on how to proceed.

Catching his wave, Liara spoke a few more words to one of the Asari crew before turning away to follow after him, her face was set and Garrus realised she had shifted into her Broker mentality sometime during the fight.

Making their way to the middle of the Hanger Bay turned battlefield, he turned to look at his Asari friend, and quickly noticed she was rather interested in something on her Omni-Tool.

"You okay? You're staring at your Omni-Tool like it'll have the answer to the Reaper War."

Though he meant it as one of his stupid jokes, the serious look she gave him quelled his humorous attitude. Though before he could say anything else, Liara brought up a picture on her Omni-Tool and showed it to him.

"Recognise this?"

The image was that of an old stone statue, worn with time and covered in a green moss, but Garrus instinctively recognised the statue of that of a Prothean. One of the few that had managed to survive the test of time.

The familiar feeling was back, and Garrus' sharp mind quickly realised why. Turning to look at the Transport Pods, the Turian Commander finally realised why the strange alien was so familiar, the Collectors had been heavily modified Protheans.

"So this was a collaborative effort then, by both Humanity and the Protheans."

Liara nodded, "The pods on Ilos were solely meant for the Protheans, I imagine that there are Human facilities on other hard to reach worlds that contain other failed cryogenic pods, but I believe that this is most likely a collaborative project that managed to stay hidden."

Thinking back, Garrus realised something else as well, "The annoying one did say that her original crew was 32 strong, most likely a combination of Humans and Protheans. It looks like it was purely luck that so many Humans survived comparatively to Protheans."

With a quick tap on her Omni-Tool, Liara nodded in agreement, but before she could comment on it any further, they reached the human in question, who was in the middle of helping a Human out of the Mech's open chest, and Garrus vaguely remembered the big Human from the cryogenic room.

Of course, back then he hadn't quite realised just how big the Human was, and Garrus stared as the enormous Human rolled his massive arms. Though the Human was still shorter than Garrus, he was still big enough that in the wrong light, the Turian Commander could've mistaken him for a small-ish Krogan.

One of the other Humans, a female in light armour, walked past him and Liara and helped to set him down against one of the Mech's legs, before starting to treat a rather nasty looking shoulder wound. Obviously something had gotten through and hurt him after all, the wound was probably caused when the Banshee had blasted the hole through the Mechs shoulder.

Liara made a polite noise of inquiry and spoke a few words to the human female. Shepard, if he remembered right, who nodded and spoke to the large Human in her own language, and patted him on his uninjured shoulder.

Standing up, Shepard waved them away from her colleagues, and they made the short walk to the edge of the Hanger Bay doors without speaking. In the distance, and only because of his visor, Garrus could see two new Reaper Sentinels coming in from orbit.

"Liara, I'm going to need an update on our extract-"

 _Thump. Thump. Thump._

 _Thump. Thump. Thump._

Spinning his head away from Liara and looking back outside, Garrus watched in horror as six new pods were launched from the Transport Reapers, arching upwards before aiming straight towards them.

Cursing the Reapers to the very depths of the Void and simultaneously praying to his ancestors Spirits, Garrus split his attention between their defences and the Reapers incoming forces. His visor marking the bullet shaped pods in red and Garrus hit the side of his helmet to shut off the blaring warnings his VI was sending at him.

They had barely held against the last wave, and with the Human's Mech out of the immediate fight, their chances of holding off this new assault plummeted. There was no chance they were going to survive against another attack so soon.

Beside him, Garrus caught Liara slumping, the Maiden was muttering what he recognised as a prayer for her goddess. Apparently she had come to the same conclusion he had as well.

Catching motion out of the corner of his eye, Garrus turned in time to watch, as Shepard brought up her right cybernetic arm, activated her blue Omni-Tool, and aimed it at the incoming pods, a rather unnerving grin creeping across her face.

* * *

 **Authors Note:**

So, pretty much all action this chapter, and showing off both Vega in Combat Suit, a bit of Shepard in the background, and some of Garrus and Liara's combat capabilities. Javik's biotic move at the beginning was taken from Prototype 2's move "Tendrils."

I also somehow ended up with a five thousand word chapter, which is by far the longest chapter I've written so far. Though I also had to cut out bits that were holding the story up, and end it earlier than I planned. Also, the next chapter will feature the Normandy and some of the upgrades I decided to add to it, both internally and externally.

Also a quick note to all those who have recently Favorited and Followed this story. Unfortunately I won't be posting regular chapters, and it may range from weeks to months between updates. This is mainly due to school work that needs my attention and that I'm starting my summer job next week, so I'll be writing rather slowly, though fear not! This fic will continue, just rather slowly.

* * *

 **As always, thank you to everyone for your support, and a big thank you to those who Follow, Favourite or Review. Of course, reviews are my life blood as a writer on this site, and every time my email goes off, it motivates me to write more. Guests can leave one as well, and it only takes a minute, even if it's just a 'Good chapter, keep it up' as it really does help.**

 **If you have questions, or just want to ask whether I'm dead or not, Revenge of the Fallen has a Forum Page, named as such. Please feel free to jump over and ask anything.**

 **~ JunkMail**


	6. Arc I: The Heavens Trembled

**~ I don't own Mass Effect, all copyrighted Content goes to their respective owners ~**

* * *

 **"** _ **The Reapers destroyed my home, killed my mother and indoctrinated my father, who then barely an hour later, killed my brother and tried to kill me. So yes, when I was offered the chance to kill them better, I took it, and I've yet to regret it.**_ **" - Quote from Captain Zaire Shepard, talking to Citadel Doctors on the moral ambiguity of her extensive cyberware.**

* * *

 **Edit: 22-12-2017: Cut a good bit out of this chapter, Shepard's perspective at the beginning especially.**

 **Arc I: Chapter 6 - The Heavens Tremble 2.0**

"If you have a moment Shepard, the Commander and I would like to talk."

Internally, Shepard sighed, she really didn't have time to mess about with the primitives, and turned back to say so, but the serious expression on the Asari's face, and the decidedly unexpected cold and empty look in her eyes made her pause to reconsider.

Turning back to Vega, she patted him on his uninjured shoulder, "Gotta go James, apparently my expertise is needed elsewhere."

The grin Vega shot her indicated he understood. Standing up, Zaire opened her comm to the Normandy, and mentally asked, _"EDI, what's the ETA on the Combat drones?"_

Gesturing to the Asari, Zaire calmly walked towards the edge of the hanger bay, the aliens following after her a few seconds later.

 _"ETA on Normandy's Combat Drones is One minute, thirty seconds."_

Nodding to herself, Zaire walked up to the low safety rail that stood between her and a 500 meter drop. To her right she could see the blast crater where the Destroyer-Class Reaper had created when it had missed, the long black scar, combined with the missing chunk of the cliff side, was an unneeded reminder of just how destructive the Reapers were capable of being.

She was interrupted from her reverie by the harsh chirping of the Turian Commander. But before the alien could finish whatever it was pointlessly saying, the pointy alien was interrupted by the harsh _Thump Thump Thump, Thump Thump Thump_ , of six more Transport Pods being launched.

Cursing under her breath, Zaire turned to look out to sea, and used her ocular implants to zoom in on the source of the noise. Helpless to do anything, Zaire watched the Transport Reaper launch six more Pods, which arched upwards, before they began to curve inwards and pick up speed, heading straight towards them.

Not bothering with pleasantries, Shepard barked into her comm, "EDI, six more TTP's incoming. We need air support, NOW!"

" _The Normandy's targeting sensors are still offline, I am unable to gain target lock until the drones are within a visual range."_

Wasting no time, Shepard brought up her Multi-Tool, "No time, I'll paint them myself, just shoot them down, or we're going to be completely screwed _."_

Raising her arm, Zaire pointed her Multi-Tool at the nearest pod, activated the in-built laser targeting system, and started to stream the raw data through her personal QEC to EDI.

If she'd had the time, Zaire would have taken the raw data and fed it through her Tool's secondary CPU, turning it into real-time co-ordinates, before sending it off. But she was _unbelievably_ short on time, so EDI would just have to deal with it herself.

The haptic interface of her Multi-Tool quickly changed to that of a targeting HUD, and Shepard allowed her Tool's on-board VI to auto correct for the minute adjustments, as well as record wind speed and gravitational pull.

 _"Data received, stand by."_

Gritting her teeth, Zaire waited as EDI took the data she was sending her, and converted it into useable targeting information. The six TTP's were barely a minute away, when finally EDI spoke.

 _"Target acquired… firing."_

Zaire let a vicious grin spread across her face at those words, and watched with unrestrained relief as a thin bolt of golden energy punctured the first pod in one shot, causing it to explode from the inside out in a fiery display, and while cheers erupted behind her, Shepard moved her Multi-Tool to the next pod.

With EDI now actively translating the raw data as she received it, the second set of shots destroyed the next two pods only a few seconds later, and by the time Zaire pointed the targeting reticule at the final pod, the fighter drones were now easily visible, slicing through the air with aerodynamic ease.

The Mark 5 Colossus Unmanned Fighter Drones were the Alliance's answer to the increasing pile of dead pilots the Reapers created. The Drones able to be flown remotely by Human Operators, VI networks, or as in the Normandy's case, by an AI able to control multiple of the high tech, relatively low cost fighters at once.

The drone's main body was the shape of an elongated triangle, with the nose inverted to create two small prongs. Flat overlapping armour panels covered the majority of the crafts body, with micro thrusters dotted around the exterior to provide extra mobility.

Four triangular flaps extended out of the crafts spine on either side, designed to extend when in atmosphere. While the two Cord-Hislop Aerospace engines situated at each of the back tips of the drone provided the thrust necessary to keep the drone flying.

The drones main armament consisted of two Particle Accelerator Cannons, placed were situated towards the front of the spacecraft and the drones utilised a cyclonic Kinetic Barrier System, forgoing magnetic barriers to save on space and weight. The primary focus of the drones being fast and hard hitting. Able to fly in, kill a target of considerable durability, and then bug out before anything serious could be brought to bear.

They had cost Shepard most of her favours with the Resource Allocation Board, but they had been immensely worth it in her opinion. Giving her the option of planet side air support when on the ground, and a small defensive screen against Oculi out in space. The Oculi being the Reapers own Drone Fighters, equipped with laser based pulse cannons and magnetic/kinetic barrier systems.

With a light beep, her Tool confirmed target lock, and EDI shot the last TTP out of the air, with the flaming debris crashing into the Cliffside just meters away from the open hanger bay doors.

Watching as yet more of the Cliffside crumbled under the impact, another large chunk of the white landscape fell into the ocean water, the once beautiful scenery ruined by smoke, rubble and Reapers.

' _Speaking of Reapers'_ Zaire thought, "EDI, I have a target for the MHD, sending coordinates now" and pointed her Multi-Tool out over the ocean, a grim look of anticipation on her weathered face.

 _"MHD Target acquired, standby for orbital bombardment."_

Turning to look over her shoulder, Zaire shouted both into her comm, and to T'Soni, who was giving her what she thought might be a questioning look.

"Brace, Brace, Brace! Friendly Orbital fire incoming!"

Turning to look back over at her target, her helmet snapped back up over her face, and she immediately activated both the visual and audio dampeners, causing her surroundings to dim to darkness and sound to cut out completely.

"Better hold on to something" she muttered as an afterthought.

She'd barely managed to get the words out before the sky practically lit up with blue light, and a stream of what looked like pure blue energy shot down from the heavens, striking the top of the Transport Reaper's Shields dead centre, and causing them to glow an eerie dark purple as the combination of Magnetic Fields and Kinetic Barriers attempted to block the hammering blow.

The light the two opposing forces created would have blinded a normal human, and it was only thanks to her helmet that Zaire saw the shockwave from the orbital impact burst outwards, taking water from the ocean, sand from the seabed, and air from the sky, and push it all outwards in one giant wave.

First the shockwave hit, and Zaire had to activate the magnetic soles on her feet to stay upright, the annoying Turian, who had been standing to her right, wasn't as lucky, and was thrown off his feet from the blast of air, dirt and water, the purple suited Quarian following a split second later. Leaving herself and T'Soni as the only two still standing, both wrapped in Biotic Barriers and leaning into the wind.

The _Crack Boom_ from the orbital shot came almost a full ten seconds later, and made her teeth rattle in her mouth and the plates on her armour to shake.

Throughout all of this, the stream of blue energy had continued to stream down from the sky, only breaking apart once hitting the Transport Reapers Shields. The dark purple barrier had been growing slowly darker as the onslaught continued, and as the domed barrier became almost entirely black, it finally failed under the strain, and shattered under the immense pressure.

Behind her helmet, Zaire grinned in savage pleasure as the Reaper vainly struggled to move out of the way, instead tripping over its own enormous legs and crashing to the ground with an almighty _Boom_.

What happened next was something Shepard had partially expected, as the Reaper was suddenly consumed by a rapidly expanding sphere of Dark Energy. The Normandy's MHD cut off moments later, having likely pierced the Reaper's Drive Core. Instead of powering down like she had hoped, the highly unstable Purple-Variant Element Zero the Reapers utilised reacted, creating an artificial Singularity of truly epic proportion.

With one last dying roar, the Transport Reaper was consumed in the ball of Dark Energy, the Massive Singularity pulled the Reaper apart, pieces of plating ripped from their holdings and consumed. The surrounding ocean, air and land went next, the Singularity growing in size as it searched for more matter. Drawing everything in and compressing it.

Huge chunks of earth and sea were ripped from the planets own gravity, the Singularity consuming everything within a one kilometre radius. Zaire was starting to feel the strain of her Biotics, being in no shape to be pulling off a Barrier so big just after waking up.

Thankfully, the Singularity had a limited fuel supply, and as the Element zero the Singularity fed on finally ran out, the artificial black hole started to shrink, losing a lot of the mass that gave it the Gravitational pull necessary to stay stable.

A shimmering purple glow began to appear around the Singularities dark core. Arcs of purple and white lightning suddenly beginning to strike out at the surrounding landscape, as the heat from the black hole's core started to escape, heating the surrounding atmosphere into rapidly ionising plasma.

Without a source of Element Zero, the Singularity promptly collapsed in on itself, and in a spectacular display, imploded. Taking with it a little under a kilometer of the surrounding landscape in arcing waves of withdrawing white light.

* * *

The air moved past her so fast it created a screeching noise not unlike that of a Banshee. Combined with the sound and sight of Rock, Earth and Ocean being ripped away from the planets own gravity, and Liara could only watch on helplessly as the black hole slowly ripped apart the world before her, powerless to stop it.

The Singularity had expanded so fast that its gravity was even affecting her, and Liara struggled to keep herself from sliding across the floor as she increased her own personal mass, squeezing her eyes shut in concentration, attempting to keep herself from getting pulled out of the hanger bay by the Singularity's gravity.

Then, as suddenly as it had started, everything abruptly lessened, the pull that had been so relentless before now seemingly unable to continue, and Liara opened her eyes. Watching with a sense of awe as the Singularity shrunk to a quarter of its size. The Element Zero from the Reapers Drive Core that had sustained it having finally run dry.

A purple glow started to hover around the core of the Singularity, and it was only as the intense heat hit her in the face did she realise that it was Plasma, the massive fields of mass altering Dark Energy conflicting drastically enough to cause heat, which was now starting to escape from the weakening gravity. Arcs of lightning started to flash, as the ionising plasma created sparks of electricity, which searched for the nearest piece of earth.

The Singularity finally couldn't take it anymore, and collapsed in on itself, taking the last of its mass with it in a spectacular display of white light.

By the time her hearing had stopped ringing, and the blinding white light had disappeared, Liara realised that in her debilitated state she had dropped her Barriers, and as she looked around, saw a different, misty white Barrier in front of her instead.

Standing in front of her was Shepard, arms outstretched, her entire body was covered with stark white biotic flares, which writhed around her in constant motion. It was unlike anything Liara had ever seen, as she could clearly see where the flares of Dark Energy flowed off to support the white Barrier that encompassed the both of them.

Even as she felt awe at the display, another part of her, locked away deep in her mind, couldn't help but comment in a voice that sounded far too much like her late mother; _'Biotic Flaring was the release of Dark Energy that you cannot control. The less you flare, the less energy you are wasting.'_

Shoving that particular thought aside, the scientific part of Liara's mind wondered on the mysterious colour of the Human's Biotics. The Prothean too, she remembered, had biotics that had been coloured a distinctive green.

 _'Was it due to biology? Their nervous systems perhaps integrating and exerting the Element Zero's dark energy differently. Or perhaps the Element itself was different?'_

Mentally refocusing, Liara watched as the last of the debris and air pressure bounce off the Humans Barrier, and as the local weather calmed down, Shepard released the barrier, letting it fall and dissipate harmlessly.

Moving to stand by the Humans side, Liara was about to thank her for shielding her, when the Human fell to one knee with a quiet _thump_ , and it was only thanks to Liara catching the surprisingly heavy human herself that she didn't fall any further.

Liara started to panic, worried that the Human had been hurt without her noticing, but before she could fall into a complete panic, Shepard's helmet split open, and revealed the Humans exhausted, but ultimately calm face.

"I'm fine," she reassured, "Just used a bit more energy than I should have."

Without any conscious effort, Liara spoke back in Prothean, "This display is something you don't do often then?"

Shepard let out a tired chuckle at that, and Liara felt herself blush. Wondering why such a sound made her do so, but discarding the thought a moment later.

With a tiny grunt of effort, Liara helped the Human to her feet, and when Shepard spoke, it was with a tinge of amusement, "I was never the most powerful of biotic operators. Though I usually like a few hours rest and a meal before exerting myself so much."

Despite herself, Liara couldn't help but get caught in Shepard's eyes, the bright green so unique and captivating her attention. A flash of colour at the corner of her vison grasped at her attention though, and looking downwards, Liara blinked in surprise as something vividly red leaked from the human's nose.

Any further staring was avoided however, when Shepard looked over her shoulder, presumably at the damaged planet beyond, and made a strange shape with her lips, a high pitched noise ringing out a second later.

The question about that particular noise was promptly forgotten when she looked over her own shoulder, and saw that where the Reaper had once stood, was now replaced with a semi-circular crater, big enough for a Dreadnought to land in. The Singularity had literally sucked in over a kilometres worth of sea, land and Reaper. Leaving behind a gaping hole in the ground so big the ocean next to it was struggling to fill it.

The distant roar of the ocean reclaiming its territory was almost ignorable, compared to the previous level of noise Liara had suffered. If it hadn't been for her noise resistant sound dampeners, fixed into her ear canals, which were used to suppress combat noise that would be ear damaging, Liara was willing to bet her entire information network that she would be otherwise completely deaf.

Instead, her head was slowly being split open by a ringing noise that, until now, she had managed to ignore. The headache that was building up behind the ringing was something Liara desperately wanted to avoid, and with a quick pinch to the bridge of her nose, the Asari Broker attempted to recenter herself.

Breathing out through her nose, it was a testament to both her state of mind, and that of her hearing, that it was the sharp gusts of air that suddenly thundered into her back that alerted her to the presence of something big coming in to land.

When Liara looked up, her previously scattered thoughts were forgotten completely. As floating above her head, the local star's sunlight reflecting off of its silver-blue and black hull, was a Human Warship. Intact, and in the process of aligning it's nose with the hanger bay's open entrance.

* * *

 **Authors Note:**

"Hello!" _'Ducks behind podium as fruit, vegetables, drinks, chairs, tables and the kitchen sink are lobbed at my head.'_ "I deserved that."

First of all, **thank you** to everyone who has Followed, Favorited and Reviewed since the last chapter. As  this chapter goes out, there are currently 225 Followers, 139 favourites, and 51 Reviews _total_ for RotF. Which will continue to blow my mind, no matter how many times I read it.

I also got my first ' _have you abandoned this story?_ ' review, which was a welcome kick up the ass for me to finish writing this chapter. So thank you for taking the time to do so, and rest assured, I _haven't_ abandoned this fic.

Finally, I want to make a proper statement here, and say that the following chapters are going to be months away, as I'm starting University in three days, so what little time I've got between Jobs and General life, will be quickly drying up.

The Normandy's fighter drones are based on the designs of Elite Dangerous' Viper MkII designs. I like the way they look, and I can imagen them fixed to the Normandy's hull.

I'm looking to post a chapter here around every two months, but we'll see how _that_ goes.

* * *

 **As always, thank you to everyone for your support, and a big thank you to those who Follow, Favourite or Review. Of course, reviews are my life blood as a writer on this site, and every time my email goes off, it motivates me to write more. Guests can leave one as well, and it only takes a minute, even if it's just a 'Good chapter, keep it up' as it really does help.**

 **If you have questions, or just want to ask whether I'm dead or not, Revenge of the Fallen has a Forum Page, named as such. Please feel free to jump over and ask anything.**

 **~ JunkMail**


	7. Arc I: Back Amongst the Stars

**~ I don't own Mass Effect, all copyrighted Content goes to their respective owners ~**

* * *

 **"** _ **My swords? I made them out of the armoured hull of the first Reaper I ever killed. Coincidentally, it just so happened to be the same fucker that led the attack against my home colony. Arrogant bastard didn't know what it had created.**_ **" - Quote from Captain Shepard Shepard, talking to Primarch Victus about the history of her blades.**

* * *

 **Arc I: Chapter 7 - Back Amongst the Stars 2.0**

Stepping aboard the Human warship, Liara couldn't help but stare out over what she recognised as the Combat Information Center, wonder clouding her mind as she stared at the functioning holo-projection table that took up the center of the room. Twelve single-operator stations lined the edge of the deck, with curved black chairs sunk slightly into the floor and haptic interfaces springing to life as the remaining humans and prothean moved into position.

She was brought out of her wonder-induced state by Shepard, who brushed her aside, causing her to stumble as the asari broker realised that she was blocking the entrance to the airlock.

With a quiet flush of embarrassment, Liara moved out of the way, and watched as the humans and singular prothean organised themselves. With Shepard moving to the overarching command platform that stood above the holo-table, while the prothean moved to a console that was built into the holographic table to Shepard's right.

Liara had seen other Human space ships, even some that were mostly intact. But they had all been in museums on Thessia or Sur'Kesh, which her mother had taken her to as a child, and those had always left her feeling unnaturally cold, the ships themselves somehow empty and lifeless. They were nothing compared to what she stood inside now.

The warship was built with sleek, sharp curves, like that of a hunting raptor, and reminded her of a strange mix of Turian and Asari ship design. Outside, the hull had gleamed a faint, blue-white against the local star's sunlight, with sharp black outlines highlighting the wings and engine pods.

The paint configuration was very similar to the small fighters that had shot down the transport pods, and that had also carried off the large humans power armour. She assumed there was a cargo-bay door somewhere, probably on the underside of the warship if she remembered correctly, which could probably fit the mechanised machine and fighter drones.

The entire warship held an undeniably deadly aura, and it reminded Liara of the one time she had met an Asari Justicar. The feeling of sleek deadliness, of calm lethal grace, which all but _singed_ of a predator, was so familiar to the asari it made her shiver, just like she had all those years ago.

She watched as the airlock doors slide shut with barely a sound, and heard the physical bolts slide into place, sealing them in. Seconds later, Liara felt the slight shift of the ships mass as it began to move. The holographic map that had dominated the large table shifted from scrolling data readouts that she couldn't read, to that of a 3D holographic representation of the planet, showing a red marker on the ground, which Liara summarised to be the first downed Reaper, and several more coming in from orbit.

Spotting a hand hold built into the outer wall, Liara moved to brace herself against it. There were several more markers, in the planets local gravity, bringing the total number of Reapers she could see up to fifteen. She couldn't tell what types they were, all the data was written in Human, and Liara reverently hoped they were mostly transport class, which would be almost useless in space-based combat.

Far more likely, however, was that they were a mix of Sovereign and Sentinel Classes, which would mean they would have more than enough firepower to turn them, the ship and any hope of escape, into molten metal debris.

There was no way for them to escape, she knew that the Reapers technology allowed them to be faster, tougher and more powerful than any ship built by their cycle, and Liara assumed that the humans or the protheans had the same disadvantage.

Even as she watched, the red markers began changing course. Once the pursuing Reapers got within fifty kilometres, their maximum weapons range, they would all be killed.

* * *

The Normandy shook slightly as she flew to escape the planet's atmosphere, clawing for altitude, and Shepard used the hand rails in front of her to keep her balance, even as she carefully watched the holo table in front of her, showing the movements of the Reapers in orbit above them.

Ken and Gabby rushed past her, diving into the engineering tunnels at the back of the CIC, no doubt heading straight for the Engineering Deck. Who knew what might have come lose or gotten misaligned in the last fifty thousand years, and Shepard was glad she'd trained her crew to not wait for her orders when time was of the essence.

Of course, while her engineers worried about the ship, she had her own concerns, such as the fourteen Reapers attempting to intercept Normandy as she tried to exit atmosphere.

She had faith that Joker would be able to weave his way through the stretched and hasty blockade the Reapers were setting up, and focused more on what would happen after. She had no wish to die in space a second time, the first time had been more than enough of an experience, and she really didn't want to repeat the mistakes that led to the SR1's final mission.

"EDI, status?"

The AI was quick and to the point, just like she always was, and Shepard allowed the familiar routine of status reports to block out the inconsistencies. Such as the primitive aliens that were now lining the CIC, and who were generally getting in the way of the few remaining crew she had left.

Ignoring the stab of pain in her chest she felt at that thought, Shepard focused back on EDI's voice.

" _-ndy is at 54% combat capability. Engine Pod Three is running at 25% capacity, and the leaking He3 is preventing us from entering Second-Stage stealth. The MHD Cannon is online, but on its cool-down cycle. Guardian Lasers, Secondary Cannons and the Magnetic Barrier System are also offline."_

Shepard swore. "Well what **is** working, EDI?"

There was a noticeable pause, which really didn't help inspire any confidence, before the AI finally replied with, _"Primary Life support is partially online, FTL Capacitors are at 64% Charge and climbing, Kinetic Barriers are Online, First-Stage Stealth Systems are Online, and Engine Pods one, two and four are running at full efficiency."_

With an aggravated grunt, Shepard slammed her fist down on the command railing in front of her, ignoring the large dent she made and quickly running through everything again in her mind. The slight vibration and rumble starting to fade as the Normandy broke atmosphere.

Almost immediately after, the ship started to lurch and groan. Joker pulling out his more daring moves to avoid the sudden onslaught of MHD and laser fire that began to fill the surrounding void.

Shepard decided to start with the easy-to-fix problems first, and brought up the commands for Engine Pod Three, shutting it down completely with a flick of her cybernetic wrist. Cutting off the stupidly obvious trail of He3 they had been leaving for the Reapers to follow and target.

With a quick bark to the AI's holographic Avatar, she ordered for them to enter Second-Stage Stealth, adding an unnecessary "Now!" Before turning her attention back to the Local System Map, watching as after a couple of seconds, the fourteen pursuing Reapers start to fan out.

The Reapers at the edges of the persuading formation were moving slightly ahead, the HUD confirming her suspicions that they were Destroyers. They were slightly faster at both sub-light and FTL Speeds, and were only 160 meters long, compared to the two kilometre long Dreadnought Class. Usually, the Destroyers acted as forward scouts and hunting packs, though they also took part in ground based assaults for less populated planets.

Making a snap decision, Shepard turned to her right, where Javik stood at his console. "Forget the Main Cannon, shunt the power to FTL. We need to get out of this system before we're filled full of holes."

With a grim nod, her second in command started doing as she had ordered, calling for power from the MHD Cannon to be sent to Normandy's FTL Capacitors, and after a moment, Shepard turned to look out over the CIC, searching for her Chief Scientist.

It took a moment, but eventually Shepard spotted her having a rather one-sided animated conversation with one of the asari they had rescued. The wild gestures and exaggerated hand movements were amusing to see, and she wasn't overly surprised to see Oriana taking an interest in the blue aliens.

After all, she had been the Chief Project-Manager for the Imperium Project. Which Shepard and the Normandy had been called on to evacuate once the Reaper Line had started to get dangerously close to the Athena Nebula.

Not bothering to try and get the scientists attention, she knew from experience that once the woman got going, it was almost impossible to get her to stop, Shepard instead turned to Miranda, who was getting her shoulder looked at by Chakwas.

"Miranda, I need you to coordinate with Ori and EDI. I want both of our Barriers online as soon as possible, we're going to need more than just Kinetics."

Her Intelligence Operative gave a swift nod, and helped to quickly and efficiently finish bandaging her shoulder, before heading over and physically getting her sisters attention. After a brief argument that Shepard couldn't hear, Miranda turned and departed for the elevator, Oriana following behind her sister only a second later.

Barely paying attention to Karin's glare, Shepard refocused herself on the problem in front of her, though EDI chimed in before she could physically do anything, _"Time to Sol Relay: 2 minutes, FTL Capacitors are at 76% charge capacity."_

With a nod of acknowledgment to the AI's Avatar, she opened the comm to the Cockpit. "Joker, what do you think? Relay, or FTL?"

There was a humourless laugh from her pilot, before he replied with his customary snark. "Relay, duh. Unless you want to shoot us out into the middle of nowhere with an easily traceable FTL vector and practically zero fuel."

Shepard sighed, "Agreed, keep current heading." With a shake of her head, she cut the comm and brought up the Local Galaxy Map, focusing in on the Relay Chains within their jump range.

Of course, the map was 50,000 years out of date, and ONII had stated that the Relays were known to shift with each cycle. So for all she knew, Arcturus was now a dead end. Or a choke point with an ambush waiting for them. God she hated her fucking Job sometimes.

Resting her elbows on the guard railing, Shepard put her head in her hands and rubbed her temples. A new migraine was growing, and she was seriously getting fed-up with all the unknowns and half-guesses she was having to make.

Glancing up, she spotted T'Soni out of the corner of her eye, holding on to one of the brace grips that lined the CIC, and when Shepard looked closer, she noticed that the asari's gaze was firmly fixed on the holo projection that she herself was getting a headache over.

A thought struck her, and Shepard almost hit herself for being so stupid, pushing herself up off the railing as she called out, consciously switching to High Prothean, "Asari! Do any of you have a galaxy-wide star map?"

Both Javik and T'Soni looked up at her call, but her XO quickly focused back on his own task, and without a word, the asari nodded her head, and started to move towards the base of Shepard's command platform, accessing her multi-tool as she went.

With a quick wave of her hand, Shepard brought up the holo tables Networking Display, and allowed it to accept the signal from the asari's multi-tool. Seconds later, a new star map appeared on screen, detailing Stars, Planets, Nebulas, Primary and Secondary Relays, and even the Citadel itself.

Shepard watched as EDI wordlessly started to compare and matched their old maps with the new data, highlighting several areas where the Relays had been moved. Additionally, Shepard couldn't see any Alliance Tuning-Forks, which meant that the Reapers had most likely destroyed them after the Alliance had fallen.

With a quick flash of light, the two maps overlapped each other and were combined into one, before EDI then zoomed in on the Sol Relay, which showed that it _did_ still lead off through Arcturus, and onto a different, but bigger Relay Chain.

With practiced efficiency, Shepard selected one of Arcturus' Secondary Relays, and marked it for Joker as a viable route. The Relay lead to the Exodus Cluster, which had several other relay chains, which would force their pursuers to split up each time they jumped. Shepard finally selected Hades Gamma, seeing a Gas Giant in the Antaeus System that was marked with Alliance Outpost credentials.

Checking back on their pursuers, Shepard realised that the Destroyers were starting to pass them, and it would only be a matter of time before they were boxed in. With that thought in mind, Shepard gave the go-ahead to Joker to hit the Relay, and then watched on in silence as EDI started the standard relay countdown, as if it was nothing more than a standard jump.

" _Sending Relay Query… Travel Data Accepted… Entering Relay Corridor in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1."_

Finally, Normandy jolted as she hit the Sol Relay, and Shepard heard a collective sigh of relief from everyone in the CIC as the Relay launched them into a mass free corridor, speeding them away from their pursuers at tremendous speeds.

' _Of course,_ ' Shepard mused, _'The Reapers will simply follow us through the Relay.'_

Which meant that they were going to need to be ready for when they re-entered Normal Space, and with that thought in mind, she keyed to comm for engineering.

"Gabby, Ken. How's it looking down there?"

There was barely a second delay before Gabby replied, sounding as exhausted as Shepard felt. _"All clear down here, Boss. The Core's running fine, nothing major was bumped out of place from what I can see."_

Giving a nod that the engineer couldn't see, Shepard started issuing new orders. "Then I need you two to head down to the torpedo bay, the Reapers are gonna come out of the Relay right on our asses, and I need to be able to send probes though each relay chain we pass."

She heard Gabby shouting at Ken away from the mic, " _Ken, get your lazy arse moving down to the torpedo bay, the Boss wants diversion probes ready for when we exit!"_ The statement brought a small smile to Shepard's face.

There was a muted sound of complaint, which Gabby quickly silenced, and then appeared to return her attention back to the mic, _"How many Probes do we need?"_ which caused Shepard to look back over to the Galaxy Map for a second, before replying quickly, "Seven total, make it eight for a fake FTL."

Giving a confirmation, Gabby closed the channel, and Shepard sighed as she again refocused her attention on the CIC, looking over her remaining people and checking that they were all behaving themselves.

Vega was leaning back against one of the empty side consoles, receiving a second look-over from Chakwas, while Kasumi had disappeared off somewhere, though she was probably still in the room, keeping an eye on their rather nervous looking guests.

EDI would be coordinating with Ori and Miranda on fixing their shielding, and Ken and Gabby were prepping the torpedo tubes for launching probes, which would hopefully still work at confusing the Reapers on which Relays they were going to hit.

With a start, Shepard realised that there wasn't anything else for her to do, and she was only shaken out of her momentary lapse in thought by EDI, who spoke out over the general comm, _"10 seconds to Relay Exit."_

Watching silently, Shepard kept her eyes on the holo table as Normandy flashed back into Normal-Space in the Arcturus Stream. Barely seconds later, klaxons sounded as ten of the twelve Reapers flashed in behind them, barely five thousand kilometres away from running them over.

What followed was what Shepard could only describe as organised chaos, as Joker deftly weaved through the Reapers around them as quickly and as silently as he could. The red markers on the holo map showing just how close they were do being detected. _'Hell, one wrong move and we'll bump right into one of them.'_

Thankfully Arcturus' connecting Secondary Relays were only a couple hundred kilometres away from each other, in varying orbits around the local star, and getting the Normandy moving towards the one she had selected was done undetected.

While the Normandy headed towards its next relay, their pursuers were breaking off, two moving to search the system while the other eight moved to guard the relays, which meant that they were going to have to act fast.

Bringing up the launch commands for the Normandy's torpedo tubes, Shepard double checked that they were loaded, and that her engineers were safe, before priming them for launch.

Watching the holographic readouts in front of her, Shepard knew that her timing was going to have to be perfect. Launch too soon and they would have to use extra propulsion, which would be quickly identified. However, if they launched too late the probes would hit the relays after the Normandy, making it far easier for them to be tracked.

For this to work, the probes would have to hit their respective relays at the exact same time as the Normandy did, which would force the Reapers to split up even further, unable to identify which of the relays they had gone through.

On the screen in front of her, three triggers sat ready for activation, and without having to ask, EDI was providing her with a map of the system, a representation of the Normandy moving on a steady course, leaving a dotted trail behind. In front of it, one curved line showed the Normandy's predicted path, and three off shooting dotted lines showed when she would need to launch the probes.

It wasn't the first time they had done this. Really, it was something of an old trick, but Shepard had never done it without people manning the Ops Alley, which was taking up a lot of EDI's processing power to do so instead.

With that in mind, Shepard made a decision, and activated her neural implant. Initiating a shallow link to the console in front of her, allowing her mind to take up some of the launch processes and trajectory calculations that EDI would normally do.

Reaching the first launch point, Shepard watched in slow motion as the timer moved into the milliseconds, and felt when EDI gave her the signal, launching each of the decoy probes in rapid succession.

Launched using only the Normandy's magnetic torpedo launchers, the probes sped off to their targets without detection, and with a mild hiss of pain, Shepard disconnected herself from the Normandy's systems.

Blinking her eyes in pain, Shepard clutched her head as the previously ignorable migraine hit her full force. Rubbing her temples, trying to soothe her stressed brain, the first thing Shepard saw when she looked back up again was Karin's outstretched hand, weathered and steady, holding two small blue tinged tablets.

Grunting in amusement, Shepard took the tablets from Chakwas' hand and popped them into her mouth, swallowing them quickly with a grimace. "Bah! I hate those things, and isn't all your stuff several thousand years out of date?" Her tone tinged with a mix of disgust and dry amusement.

Karin simply smiled, "You shouldn't be interfacing with anything so soon out of Cryogenic Stasis, dear. I don't care how urgent it is, you'll start popping blood vessels in your head if you continue."

Nodding with sincerity, making sure the doctor knew she'd heard the implied orders, Shepard focused back on the system map in front of her, not watching as her long standing friend and surrogate mother walked back down the ramp, and move off to stand next to Vega.

They had almost reached their next relay, and the Reapers were actively and openly scanning everything that was coming close to them. No doubt attempting to detect them before they started hitting multiple relays, just as they always did when Shepard employed this tactic.

Entering the ten second mark, EDI started the standard countdown, and Shepard let herself begin to relax, despite the looming Reapers.

Notifications started to pop up just before they hit the relay, and Shepard smiled as she saw three successful probe return pings, indicating they too had hit their relays. The Reapers were no doubt splitting up and jumping through each relay in pursuit, and now it was only a matter of time.

* * *

 **Authors Note:**

Only one month late this time! Sorry for the delays, Uni is being uncooperative with me, so things are progressing slower than I'd like. Turns out my side courses (Maths and Core Skills) are more difficult and assessment ridden than my main subject (Games Design).

Anyway, this chapter was only a little under four thousand words. A sort of wrapping up chapter for Arc I. Which reminds me, I've put in Arc's! This is the end of the first Arc, and will be followed by a short interlude chapter, where Shepard will reveal just how ruthless she can be, before we'll move on to Arc II.

On another note, I'm in the process of planning out the outlines for a compendium, (a fanfic dedicated to stuff like character profiles and background documents) which will be used as a way to do some world building and background expansion. It will be mostly made up of intelligence and file reports, focusing on some things unique in RotF, such as human and prothean Cold War history, some relevant science projects, and to explain some of the tech.

Finally, I'd like to once again say **thank you** to everyone who continues to review, and to those who've now Followed and Favorited. Seriously, this story has jumped up to 411 followers and 261 favourites, which continues to blow my mind!

* * *

 **As always, thank you to everyone for your support, and a big thank you to those who Follow, Favourite or Review. Of course, reviews are my life blood as a writer on this site, and every time my email goes off, it motivates me to write more. Guests can leave one as well, and it only takes a minute, even if it's just a 'Good chapter, keep it up' as it really does help.**

 **If you have questions, or just want to ask whether I'm dead or not, Revenge of the Fallen has a Forum Page, named as such. Please feel free to jump over and ask anything.**

 **~ JunkMail**


	8. Interlude I: Alliance History Codex I

**:: Official Combined Systems Alliance Data – Arcturus Data Archive ::**

* * *

 **OFFICAL COMBINED SYSTEMS ALLIANCE ARCHIVE FILE CODE 112259-6**

 **CLASSIFIED READING MATERIAL PRESENT**

 **CLASSIFICATION: CRYPTIC**

 **SUB-CLASSIFICATION: BLACK - EYES ONLY**

 **Please confirm user ID…**

 **. . .**

 **User Identity – CONFIRMED**

 **Secondary ID – CONFIRMED**

 **. . .**

 **Data Encryption Security Protocols – ACTIVE**

 **START FILE_**

* * *

 **CLASSIFIED COMBINED SYSTEMS ALLIANCE READING MATERIAL.**

 **THIS MATERIAL CONTAINS REFERENCES TO AIS OR ONII INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS. THIS IS NOT TO BE SHARED, COPIED OR DISCUSSED OUTSIDE OF CLASS-1 SECURE AREAS. FAILURE TO FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE ARREST, WITH ATTEMPTS TO RESIST MET WITH LETHAL FORCE.**

 **. : : .**

 **CURRENT DATE: 15-01-2348, CSA CALANDAR**

 **HEADER: Pre-First Contact Spacefaring Timeline for Humanity**

 **SUBHEADER: Cryptic-Black Classification, Human History, Restricted File Access**

 **. . .**

 **General Reading Overview**

This historical document is written in order to provide the reader a detailed _Cryptic: Black Level Classified_ version of Humanity's general historical timeline of space expansion. Starting from when humanity becomes a spacefaring species, and ending at the beginning of the First Contact War with The Supreme Prothean Empire.

Please see ' _Humanity Post F.C.W Timeline_ ' for events that have happened throughout and after First Contact, ' _Humanity Pre-Spacefaring Timeline_ ' for events that happened before first human spaceflight.

For reference, please read ' _Old Earth Nations and Factions_ ', ' _Human Governmental Structures_ ' and ' _Human Ground and Space Military Tactics_ ' for a better understanding of some subjects discussed in this document.

 **00o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o00**

 **April 12** **th** **1961 – Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space, and Humanity officially becomes a spacefaring civilisation.**

From here on humanity began to quickly develop space vessel technology, two of Earths biggest nation states (The United States of America) and (The Soviet Union) were competing in terms of technological advancements, global superiority and differing ideological governments.

 **July 20** **th** **1969 – American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin landed on Earth's moon, Lunar.**

Within only eight years, humanity went from sending its first person into space, to launching three people into space, where they then managed to cross over to their moon's orbit. They then landed successfully, stayed on the moon's surface long enough to collect geological samples, explore the surrounding area, place scientific equipment, and plant a flag, before returning to their module and beginning their flight back.

In total, the flight took from launch to landing one hundred and ninety five hours and eighteen minutes. However, in the wake of humanity's success, the public's interest in space waned, and it would take humanity another 50 years to develop the technology, monetary and public backing needed to peruse its next set of steps.

 **May 18** **th** **2022 – The European Space Agency first landed astronauts on Mars, the fourth planet in the Sol System.**

The _Aurora Exploration Programme_ was Europe's biggest space programme, and paved the way for almost all other space programmes developed by humanity after the first Mars Colony. The programme's objective was to formulate and then to implement a European long-term plan for exploration of the Sol System. Using a combination of robotic spacecraft and human spaceflight to investigate bodies holding promise for traces of life beyond the Earth.

The Mars manned mission was one of its first and biggest Flagship Missions, with the majority of the technology and equipment being used being first-generation, it was at a very high risk of failing. Despite this, the excellent performance of both the first, and the second crew, ensured that the mission was ultimately a complete success.

 **June 24** **th** **2022 – The ESA began construction of permanent living modules on Mars.**

The first set of astronauts who landed on Mars, stayed on the surface for 28 days, collecting samples, testing equipment and setting up more long-term facilities, having to rely upon first-gen pre-fabrication units for habitation. The site chosen in for colonisation was in Eos Chasma, and after their 28 days were up, the second ESA space vessel had arrived in orbit with a second crew and fresh supplies, relieving the first crew and allowing them to return to Earth.

The majority of the supplies brought by the second crew were spare parts, new supplies of oxygen and growable food. The second crew set about finishing the last of the construction of the pre-fabs, and began food and oxygen production with the aim of becoming self-sufficient. In total, the second crew stayed on Mar's surface for four months, before another crew relieved them, continuing a cycle.

With the success of the ESA's Mars Mission, and the positive outlook of the second mars crew's success, the ESA publicly announced that due to the Mars mission's success, it was their intention to set up a viable colony by 2030. They also asked for civilian volunteers who would be knowledgeable in engineering, construction and farming, and would be willing to spend up to three years on Mars. This had the effect of making it possible for the middle or working class to travel to another world, unthinkable at the time, and effectively rekindled humanities curiosity for outer-space.

 **January 3** **rd** **2031 – The ESA Mars Colony becomes largely independent of Earth.**

In spite of several setbacks, the ESA Mars Colony managed to become largely self-sufficient, growing its own food, mining and purifying its own water, and only needing routine maintenance drops every solar year.

The colony Site, named The Lowell Site, had a population of 5,000 people, with many of the site's occupants looking to become permanent residence. Because of the isolated nature of the colony, new relationships were forged, and families started, which had the unforeseen side effect of creating a high birth rate, which the local colony administration had to curb by implementing birth control legislation to stabilise the unsustainable population climb.

The Mars Colony continued to grow as the local population slowly expanded, with even more people moving to Mars from Earth, most trying to flee their crowded homeworld. Eventually becoming large enough to be classified as a City, the Site was renamed Lowell City, with its population at 15,000 and climbing.

Within a decade, both the United States and China had also founded and begun construction on permanent settlements as well. With an estimated combined total Martian population of about 21,000 people.

 **October 12** **th** **2045 – Mars landscape surveyors discovered strange gravitational anomalies, located in a large crater.**

As the Colonies on Mars grew, however, so did the areas of explored Martian surface. It was quickly noticed that satellites near Promethei Planum began reporting strange phenomena that gave the region a 'Bermuda Triangle' reputation, mostly strange magnetic field disturbances and unexplained gravitational anomalies.

Eventually, a team led by a human named Mateus Silva, began exploring the area near the Deseado Crater, and the scientists quickly noticed that the closer they got to the crater, the stronger the anomalies became.

A brief excavation of the crater revealed the partly buried remains of an early Mars Satellite Probe, _Mars Express_ , which had spent over a decade sending images back to Earth, before eventually running out of fuel and falling out of orbit, thought to be lost for over 35 years.

The early Mars probe had managed to crash directly on top of a strange and large meteorite, which had contained an Unknown Element that had reacted to the probes exposed lithium-ion battery power supply.

The discovery of the old and historic probe was only overshadowed by the discovery of a new and unknown element, which after being thoroughly tested and examined back at one of Lowell City's Science Bases, was named Element Zero. Which held the unique ability to manipulate the mass of matter, and distort the shape of magnetic fields when exposed to electrical currents.

 **August 23** **rd** **2055 – Humanity produced its first Element Zero incorporated Space Vessel.**

After the discovery of Element Zero and the unique properties and effects it had, the Lowell Scientists sent message of their discovery back to Earth. It was quickly realised that the element had the power to revolutionise space travel, with the ability to lower a ships mass enough to theoretically travel at Faster-Than-Light Speeds, and the Mars Scientists were given more funding and ordered to search for any more of the rare element.

After three smaller deposits of Element Zero were discovered in other Craters on Mars, enough Element Zero, dubbed by the locals as "Eezo", was accumulated to be effectively utilised on one of the ESA's smaller space vessels.

The Lowell Scientists, coming to the conclusion that the discovery of Eezo only in Martian craters, meant that the Element was not native to Mars, and through tests of materials that were also in the craters with the new element, discovered that the meteorites had come from the Sol System's main Asteroid Belt.

Utilising the limited Element Zero they had, the ESA first sent automated probes into the asteroid belt, and used them to localise and triangulate more Eezo rich meteorites. The first Eezo incorporated Human Space Vehicle, _the_ _HSV Discovery_ , made its first mining trip in 2059, and brought back over three times as much Eezo than that to be discovered on Mars.

 **February 30** **th** **2064 – The Charon Relay is discovered.**

Several passes around Pluto revealed strong Element Zero readings, and the United Nations authorised several probes to be launched, in the hopes of discovering new stores of the rare element. Until this point, the ESA had a monopoly on the mining and distribution of Eezo from the Sol system's main asteroid belt.

After several vessels reported readings of high gravitational readings from Charon, one of Pluto's moons, a dedicated exploration vessel was sent out by the UN to get a more definitive look.

Instead of discovering a new Element Zero vain, it was revealed that Charon appeared to have a significant amount of refined Element Zero in its core. After several debates between the European Union and United Nations, several probes equipped with ice drills were sent to investigate. Upon which after drilling was done to reach the moons core, it was discovered that there appeared to be some sort of ancient artefact was buried in the ice, and that the device was being powered by a massive Element Zero core.

Excited by the possibilities, and eager to attempt to research and reengineer possible technology from the artefact, a joint Central Asian Union/United Nations mining ship was commissioned and built in 2066. With its purpose being to transport equipment, workers, scientists and resources to and from the ice moon.

Captain John Grissom was selected to be the ship's captain, and was tasked with overseeing the joint project and the artefacts excavation.

After a decade of research, the artefact discovered in Charon's core was accidentally activated, the now-known-to-be Mass Relay destroying Charon as it awoke and moved into a geostationary orbit above Pluto.

It was Captain John Grissom who ordered his ship closer to the Relay, attempting to find survivors, and in the process inadvertently triggering the Reaper Device. It would be several hours later before Grissom would return, becoming one of the first humans to ever set foot outside the Sol System, and into the New Frontier.

 **March 8** **th** **2070 – The Mars Colonies declare themselves an Independent Planet.**

After expanding to encompass several continents, with over eight cities in total, the total population of Mars was over 90% Martian. With over four generations of families that had grown up on Mars, the majority considered the planet their ancestral home more than Earth.

The split itself was fairly peaceful, thanks largely to the agreements made by the governments involved, the move largely changed nothing, with the local governments in place already running everything, the only difference was in that the Martian populous were given the right to self-govern.

The contracts Mars had with the governments, corporations and people of Earth remained largely unchanged, with the Martian government given the new opportunity to branch out with other nations.

Only a couple of years later, the Eldfell-Ashland Energy Corporation , a Martian based corporation, demonstrated helium-3 fuel extraction from the atmosphere of Saturn, and signed several deals with nations on both Earth and Mars, being the only company capable of doing so at the time.

 **October 6** **th** **2078 – The first Garden Worlds are found by Human explorers, starting the First Wave of Colonisation.**

 _Demeter_ was both the first extra-solar colony and first garden world to be colonised by humanity, with the original colony program being funded through the Delta Pavonis Foundation. Three years later, a joint CAU/UN Colony was started on another continent, and began to export produce back to Earth.

Six years later, the garden world _Benning_ was discovered, and quickly colonised by the ESA, who made claim to the entire planet, in an attempt to prevent other nations from colonising other areas of the planet.

As the populations on both Demeter and Benning grow, and new generations were born, so did the Frontiers crime rate. It became clear that some sort of policing force was needed, separate from the corporations and individual governments that claimed ownership of the lands, as corruption was known to be rampant outside of the Sol System. The solution was the formation of the _Interstellar Policing Commission_ (IPC), whose task was to enforce the laws set forth by the Sol System.

However, as several decades passed, a more isolationist view was taken in Sol politics and the two colonies were slowly but largely forgotten, with more resources, materials and element zero found, the corporations that were contracted to find, manufacture and transport them from the Frontier gained more freedom and power to act as they wish. With the IPC, whose ranks were largely filled with colonists themselves, largely getting brushed aside and being forced to watch helplessly as colonists suffered the consequences.

The colonists on Benning and Demeter quickly started to resent those back in the Sol System, with corporations creating and enforcing laws that turned them into little more than slave labour. Terrorist cells began popping up, and violent riots breaking out more and more often, with the remains of the IPC doing more to help than stop.

 **December 12** **th** **2107 – The beginning of the first Systems War (The S.W).**

The Systems War was the first war in human history to be fought on an interstellar level, and was the first time Cruisers and Destroyers were built and deployed for space-based combat. The majority of the Sol Systems defences at the time consisted of orbital defence platforms, frigates, corvettes and patrol boats, anything bigger was considered at the time to be a waste of money and precious Eezo.

The Systems War was believed to have been started by the _Interplanetary Colonial Militia_ , one of the biggest and most connected extremist terrorist groups of the Frontier, and that consisted of former IPC personnel, angry colonists, and hired mercenaries, allied with other, smaller terrorist cells.

The ICM claimed to be fighting for the oppressed colonists of Demeter and Benning, and had carried out several bombing and assaults against Sol-based corporations, growing to a substantial size, with even more fringe members, over the course of two decades.

In what became their biggest attack, the ICM managed to assault the Sol System, and hit both Earth and Mars in a display of brutality. Utilising several freighters armed with hidden kinetic point-defence guns, the ICM managed to destroy twenty CAU/UN and ten European Union Patrol Boats, along with two corporate space-docks, and attempted to hit the planets themselves, before defence stations destroyed them. The attack killed over 5,000 civilian dock-workers and over 2,000 servicemen and women.

At the same time, the ICM seized control of several other patrol boats and space docks above both Demeter and Benning. Using a combination of infiltrators and hackers to allow time for armed militia to get on board and seize them by force. They destroyed any Freighters or patrol boats they couldn't take by force, and declared the two colonies independent, to the large support of the newly freed colonists.

Several thousand humans were killed within 24 standard hours, and the attack over Earth and Mars left the home-system nation states reeling. The Patrol Boats that had been destroyed in orbit had been equipped with first-generation Element Zero Drive Cores, and when destroyed, had effectively launched over a combined ton of dust-state refined Element Zero into Earths and Mars's atmospheres, poisoning large areas of land and people before it could be successfully contained.

By the end of the solar week, the total civilian death count had risen from a few thousand, to over a million, as people from around Earth and Mars died from Eezo poisoning, sparking more anger and grief from the majority of the Sol System's nations.

United in both outrage and grief, the public demanded action against the ICM, and Earths largest national alliances joined together with that of Mars, forming that which would be later called the Sol System Alliance. With a joint military alliance formed in order to take back the two colonies and eliminate the Independent Colonial Militia.

 **February 10** **th** **2108 – The Sol System Alliance begins its advance on the Frontier Colonies.**

Following the Battle for Arcturus, the Sol Alliance finally pushed the ICM out of the Arcturus Stream, and began to go on the offensive against the Frontier Colonies. However, upon doing so, a new problem presented itself.

Instead of attempting a battle of attrition, the ICM largely kept its space vessels hidden just outside of their solar systems, using them to spring ambushes with guerrilla style tactics, targeting ships that carried food, medicine or troops.

Ground-to-Space defences meant that Alliance vessels had to stay in high orbit to avoid being shot down, and this assured that air superiority was always in the Defenders favour. In order to combat this, Mars and Earth Scientists were ordered to develop a solution for getting heavy units on the ground quickly.

This lead to the creation of the First-Generation of Frame Armour, more commonly called Power Armour (the soldiers who used these armoured suits would later be reformed into an entirely new Regiment), which had its preliminary design based on construction exoskeleton suits, hastily redesigned to serve in combat.

Use of a slightly bigger Eezo Core, fixed Micro-Propulsion Jets and a more robust skeletal design meant that the Frame Armour could be successfully dropped from low orbit, with or without their pilots.

While Element Zero continued to be difficult to find, sufficient quantities of the element had been mined and shipped back to the Sol System for it to become available on the civilian market, albeit at an extremely high price.

It was the use of these new technologies, combined with a heavy ground assault that cost 6,000 servicemen and women their lives, which lead to the eventual retaking of the Capital of Demeter, High Canton.

Only a year later, the ICM officially surrendered, when after several disastrous fleet engagements lead to the decimation of the few combat capable space vessels they had, and Alliance Fleets surrounded Benning, threatening to invade.

 **May 18** **th** **2114 – The Human Systems Alliance is first founded.**

With the co-signing of the _Independent Colony Act_ , and later the _Systems Alliance Agreement Charter_ , which gave Frontier Colony Civilian Administrators large amounts of independence and control in both laws, and the everyday management of their worlds, the Systems Alliance worked to ensure there wouldn't be another war between the Frontier and the Sol System.

Based heavily upon Earth's United Nations and European Union, the Systems Alliance Agreement gave the colonies a voice in matters involving widespread policy and politics, by giving each colony a representative in Alliance Parliament, and lead by an elected Prime Minister styled President, all of which had been formed in the wake of the Systems War to oversee governing of human colonies off of Earth and out of the Sol System.

The Systems Alliance Agreement was signed by 21 nations from Earth, the Mars and Lunar colonies, and both of the Frontier Colonies. It gave the new Alliance, formally the Sol Alliance, renamed the _Human Systems Alliance_ , overall policing power in space, and the authority to set down basic laws by which all colonies and nations would abide by.

After rumours started to spread of humans wielding telekinetic abilities, the new Systems Alliance was quick to investigate, and a few months later publically confirmed the rumours. Officially naming such individuals 'Biotics', and later released preliminary data on how being exposed to dust-form element zero could create these effects.

It was also in 2115 that Aldrin Labs created the first prototype small-arms rifle that utilised element zero and magnetic rails, in order to fire a small metal dart at up to eight times the speed of sound.

Only a year later, the company revealed to the media that they had signed several contracts with nations within the Sol System, providing limited numbers of various refined small-arms that utilised the new technology.

In 2118, in accordance with the Alliance's role as interplanetary police, the _Systems Alliance Navy_ was formed, and was tasked with providing security for mass relay trade lanes to and from the colonies.

The First and Second Patrol Fleets finished construction a year later, utilising Destroyers for the core flagships, with frigates and Corvettes making up the bulk of the fleets vessels. The fleets were later expanded in 2126 to include small defence fleets, made up of corvettes and frigates stripped of their FTL Drives, for each Frontier colony as pirate raids began to increase, along with colony-controlled static defence stations placed at the Arcturus Relays.

 **July 10** **th** **2132 – Systems Alliance Surveyors discovered three Garden Worlds for human colonisation.**

The start of the _New Colony Golden-Age_. As part of the SA Agreement Charter, the Systems Alliance decided to dispatch surveyors, tasked with locating mining sites, mapping Star Systems and Mass Relays and locating Garden Worlds that could be colonised.

 _Terra Nova_ , an Earth-like planet, was discovered in 2133, and was quickly settled by colonists. The planets highly fertile soil meant that colonists were able to quickly set up massive farms that spanned hundreds of acres, with modern technology combined with traditional farming techniques to quickly propel the colony to the Alliance's premier bread-basket world.

The local colony administration proved adept in setting itself up as the inner colony's most lucrative provider of food stuffs and supplies, and kept the majority of the dense cities that sprung up around the planets poles, keeping the equator free of urbanisation for agricultural purposes.

Two years later, _New Tokyo_ , a very dry but resource rich planet was discovered in 2135. By this point the Earth nation of Japan was having a resurgence of population, and was once again dealing with overpopulation issues, combined with rising sea levels that continued to erode what little land the island-nation had. The Japanese Government appealed to the Alliance Parliament for an exclusive contract to have large portions of their people offered the opportunity to immigrate to the newly discovered world, in order to reduce their population size to more manageable levels.

In 2136, Alliance Parliament voted in favour, and with both combined corporate, government and Alliance backing, over three million people immigrated to New Tokyo over the next three years.

 _Mindoir_ , another Earth-like world that required minor terraforming to deal with an overabundance of greenhouse gases in its atmosphere, was colonised in 2138. The planets largely flat lands proved ideal for farming after minor terraforming, and within another two years, it was the Alliance's second largest supplier of essential foodstuffs after Terra Nova, and the human government's premiere source of logging and other base materials.

Because of the expansion of human territory, new systems and planets were made accessible, with small outposts and docking stations beginning to pop up further and further away from mass relays.

With the Alliance refusing to help fund such small outposts so far away from the relay network, the small 'Wildcat' colonies were prone to raids from pirates, and routinely had to call upon corporations and PMC's for protection.

The Alliance itself was also having to deal with the expansion of human territory, and was forced to stretch its Navy thin in order to protect the new Frontier. Taxation of Alliance Protected worlds prevented the Alliance from collapsing, but with the government still in its infancy, it couldn't raise the money needed to adequately protect everything.

Instead, the Alliance adopted a new policy to deal with the weight. Instead of trying to protect colonies from orbit, the Alliance positioned fleets at key mass relay chains, and acted as a rapid reactionary force.

 **April 15** **th** **2135 – {Classified: Top Secret} The Systems Alliance created the HSA Research and Development Division.**

With the rise of new colonies, higher tier worlds and larger populations, the Alliance began to receive more money via taxation and protection contracts. With this, the vote was cast for the Alliance to form a new Division, dedicated to the research and development of new technologies and methods to advance the human race.

One of the few projects first started was the Tuning-Fork Project, which was tasked with researching the mass relays, with the end goal being the Alliances ability to reengineer the technology for themselves. Along with the Unmanned Space Vehicle Project, the Digital Defence Project and the Genetic Enhancement Project.

Several years later, an off shoot division was created to focus on medical technologies, and another devoted to archaeological pursuits, focused on the few ruins found on worlds indicating extinct but advanced alien life.

 **June 12** **th** **2137 – The rise of Frontier Colony Pirate activity becomes a major issue in Alliance Parliament.**

Before the rise of Demetrius Pharos and James Logan, piracy in the Frontier was considered relatively rare, with the cost of supplying and maintaining even small space vessels too high for anything other than the wealthy elite.

However, as the Alliance grew, and space vessel technology improved, older vessels were stripped of weapons systems and sold to colonies or private owners. On top of this, the increase of elements zero in the civilian market meant that small mining corporations were beginning to appear, and created a demand for Private Military Corporations to defend them.

By 2140, there was a growing problem of lower class frontier colonists being drawn into piracy, the raid on Terra Nova in 2143 by James Logan and his band of pirates and mercenaries, solidified the belief of it being a lucrative employment for the criminal underworld.

In an attempt to reassure the public that such an event would never happen again, the Systems Alliance Parliament voted in favour of the formation of a standard Army, tasked with garrisoning Class A and B colony worlds to defend the colony on the ground from attack.

 **October 8** **th** **2141 – The beginning of the Third Wave of Colonisation.**

 _Ferris Fields_ and _Eden Prime_ were both colonised at around the same time, despite being discovered by separate survey teams on different relay chains. Both also being Earth-like planets, the discovery of primitive and non-sentient life on Eden Prime quickly sparked debates about the morality of settling garden worlds, and the disruption of alien species evolution.

Two other notable colonies were settled around this time. _Tiptree_ and _New Canton_. Both without alliance support and therefore exempt to both the human governments taxes and military-police protection.

While Tiptree remained peaceful, mostly due to it being close to Alliance Trade Lanes, and one of the furthest colony's settled in the Frontier, New Canton, on the other hand, was much further away from Alliance trade lanes. This proved to be an ideal planet, with New Canton quickly becoming a hotbed for former ICM fighters and political activists who held anti-Alliance agendas.

Following several new attacks, claimed by the ICM, the Alliance eventually voted in favour to create a central intelligence service, specifically dedicated to preserving stability in the Frontier and protecting Alliance citizens from potential domestic threats. Officially named the _Alliance Intelligence Service_ or the A.I.S.

Alongside this act, the HSA Military was granted approval to begin recruiting personnel from Earths most efficient Special Forces trainers, for an entirely new Alliance Special Forces Program, Codenamed the N-Program.

The AIS, backed by the new N7 Special Forces, quickly grew to be infamous by terrorist organisations for its shadowy effectiveness and unerring ability to root out cells and sympathisers inside Alliance civilian space.

 **January 25** **th** **2153 – The beginning of the Second Systems War (The S.S.W).**

Following the 2152 Geneva attack on Earth, where a Black Nano Plague was released during talks on updating the Geneva Convention, the AIS was given the go-ahead to conduct Black Operations and covert intelligence gathering outside of Alliance territory.

After several months of investigations, the AIS eventually discovered that the previously thought to have been destroyed Interplanetary Colonial Militia, had been quietly growing in deep space for decades. With several deep cover agents reporting that multiple Wildcat Colonies were under the terrorist organisations total control.

Reports claimed that the ICM had been enslaving the local populations for manual labour, and had showed serious signs of having built up to three space-based shipyards, with even more on the Wildcat Colonies themselves, dedicated to warship construction.

A year later, it is believed that a weakness in the AIS's data security was exploited by hacktivists, who accessed information on several of the Black Ops carried out against the ICM. These activists are believed to have later sold the information to the ICM, and the terrorist organisation is believed to have gone into overdrive.

With the ICM aware that their operations in Deep Space have been discovered, it is believed that the terrorist organisation accelerated the time-scale of their long-term objective. Several months after the cyber-security breach, another massive cyber-attack was committed, this time against the Frontier Extranet System, which abruptly cut off.

Several hours later, secure military channels reported that unidentified warships had jumped into multiple of the affected systems, and that all Class-C Colonies were reporting riots in major cities, followed up with intelligence of military installations being occupied by ICM troops.

The Alliance attempted to respond, ordering both major Patrol Fleets to move to secure the Frontier from the resurgent ICM, with new orders sent to primary Alliance Shipyards to begin accelerated production.

Unfortunately, the ICM had expected this, and had been preparing a counter. Several Alliance Captains, along with the majorities of their crews, which were in charge of valuable warships, break away and mutiny. Joining the ICM and heavily bolstering both their numbers, suitably increasing the ICM's Combat Capability from worrisome, to highly lethal.

Around the same time, deep cover agents inside the Alliance's support system were activated, and enacted several cases of serious sabotage that crippled the majority of the Alliance's Secondary Fleets, killing thousands in the process as smaller shipyards and major infrastructure were attacked and destroyed.

This crippled the Alliance's ability to fight in a Naval capacity overnight, and gave the newly established ICM both time to entrench itself in the Frontier, and the advantage in pushing into Alliance Territory proper.

 **February 19** **th** **2156 – {Classified: Cryptic} The Systems Alliance discovered an unknown alien shipwreck.**

In the opening months of the Second Systems War, the _Alliance Archaeological Research Sub-Division_ was studying the Great Rift Valley of Klendagon, and managed to reveal evidence that pointed it towards being an artificial creation, possibly created by a stray mass-accelerated cannon shot.

Tracing back the flight path of the theoretical shot, the archaeological scientists believed that it was possible that the cannon was fired from the Thorne system.

Utilising the only space vehicle allocated to them, the Archaeologists entered the system and began to do a thorough search of each planet for signs of alien habitation.

In the orbit of the gas giant Mnemosyne, an unknown alien ship was discovered. The ships size alone was bigger than anything of alliance construction, and was quickly classified by the AIS, the entire system being classed as a military zone, and the team who discovered the wreckage sworn to secrecy.

The nature of its construction and origin was considered unknown, and the Alliance assigned a dedicated R&D Division to investigate the massive ship, with the objective to begin research and development of any new technology or materials that they found. The project was codenamed Project DARK-SEA.

The initial discoveries and breakthroughs that were made by these scientists would prove to be some of the biggest in human history, with new designs for ship armour, leaps in understanding FTL physics, along with advances in modern computer development, all serving to increase the Alliance's understanding of technology by several decades in under five years.

Several years into Project DARK-SEA, a dedicated Eugenics program, code-named Project INTELLECTUS, is formed, with the objective of either biologically or synthetically improving the human mind to be able to understand high-tier meta-physics and mathematics.

The majority of the Wreckages more advanced technology featured the use of high-dimensional mathematics, which the un-augmented mind cannot comprehend. The new Project was therefore deemed high-priority, and was allowed to pull other assets from the Genetic Enhancement Project, in order to provide the necessary expertise.

 **January 16** **th** **2161 – The Systems Alliance begin to push back against the ICM.**

It took the Systems Alliance nearly half a decade to recover from the initial loss. This was largely accomplished due to the several hundred mothballed warships the Alliance had kept in reserve since the last Systems War.

Due to the heavy support given by SA Citizens, recruitment tripled in under a year, and several corporations began to provide the human government with resources at-cost, after the ICM began to attack and steal corporate shipping for fresh supplies in 2165.

Following several more mutinies after the start of the Second Systems War, it became clear that the AIS, while more than capable of fulfilling its duty of monitoring the SA citizenry, was not able to stretch itself to cover Alliance Military personnel as well.

In response, the SA President personally commissioned the creation of the _Office of Naval Inspection and Intelligence_ or O.N.I.I. which was tasked with the sole objective of routing out corruption and ICM cells within the SA Military command structure.

The attempted assault of Terra Nova on the 13th March, 2170, that proved to be the catalyst for Alliance Parliament to vote in favour of the construction of both the Battleship and Carrier-Class. Both types of warship that had proven to be game-changers in the past, the cost of construction alone would have bankrupted the Alliance government had it not been in war-time, as before then, the biggest class of Space Vessel ever constructed was the Baleen-Class Heavy Freighter, built by the Corellian Engineering Corporation at 425.99 meters in length in 2143.

On April 20th, 2172 the first Everest-Class Battleship, the _Systems Alliance Vessel Everest, Dreadnought-1_ , was launched from its shipyard, at (a then unprecedented) 954.54 meters in length.

A year later, the Einstein-Class Carrier, the first of its class to be built for space operations, the _Systems Alliance Vessel Einstein, High Endurance-1_ , which had a (then considered to be) truly staggering length of 1205.40 meters, and 532 meters in width.

 **March 10** **th** **2168 – {Classified: Cryptic} The Alien Ship and the surrounding system is quarantined.**

Following a report from the project's primary VI Security-Monitor, which sent a flash-report after several Black-List Security protocols were tripped, AIS and ONII responded quickly to quarantine the entire Thorne System.

After securing the local system, contact was attempted with Project-Director Alexia Chandana, but was met with radio silence. In response, the AIS mobilised an entire strike team of N7's to breach and secure the main project base.

Once entering the station, the strike team quickly reported to have encountered resistance from mutated and mutilated humans, who appeared to have been infected with, what was believed at the time to be, some kind of advanced bio-synthetic parasite.

The strike team did find survivors, including Doctor Chandana, but all recovered personnel proved to have gone insane, attacking both the strike team, and the mutilated husks. Later reports from briefed phycologists stated that they had all suffered severe traumatic psychological breaks, and seemed to no longer be able to make the distinction between reality and their imaginations. Several of the recovered scientists stated that, "That even dead gods dream."

Following the disaster, ONII officially reclassified the Project to the highest level of secrecy, Dark-Nova Classification, and an emergency investigation was conducted. The investigation lasted for over thirteen months, where investigators, in conjuncture with theoretical scientists, poured over data and recovered corpses for clues as to what happened.

While they were quick to realise that it wasn't any sort of biological plague, investigators did make several notes that some of the bodies contained unknown cybernetics and strange regenerative Nanites that self-destructed whenever taken away from the host corpse.

It was only after turning to look the data recovered from Doctor Chandana's private notes, then confirmed via remote mech forces, that the Alliance did eventually discover that the Wreckage, and any subsequent artefacts removed from it, was emitting a subsonic frequency, that reacted with the neurons in the brain to cause hallucinations, panic attacks, homicidal rages, and extreme paranoia.

 **June 8** **th** **2171 – {Classified: Cryptic} The DARK-SEA Project was restarted.**

Following the conclusion of the Investigative team, ONII reactivated Project DARK-SEA, taking great pains to ensure that new parameters and failsafes were tested, and then installed correctly. Doctor Joseph Priestly was selected, and the later briefed, before becoming the next Head Project-Director for the Project.

Doctor Priestly immediately crated three new sub-divisions, the first to investigate ways of countering the Wreckages 'Indoctrinating' effect. With the second new sub-division dedicated to repurposing, recreating and weaponizing the effect for use against the ICM.

The third new sub-division was to investigate information recovered from the Projects old servers, which indicated remarkable progress into the analysation of the Wreckages Eezo Core. Before the scientists went mad, it was revealed that they had discovered that the Wreckage used a different Variant of Element Zero.

While the old Science team had only figured out the basics of how this was accomplished, the new sub-division was able to quickly use this information to catapult their research, eventually resulting in the creation of White Element Zero.

While Purple variant of Element Zero that the Wreckage held could not yet be recreated, despite a large quantity of it being present in the Wreckages Eezo Core. Doctor Priestly theorised that Human science and technology has not yet progressed far enough for them to create the tools necessary to formulate the delicate but powerful Elemental Variant.

Project INTELLECTUS, which had been remarkably unaffected by the previous events, were finally successful in creating their first stable Human Eugenics Clone, and while the clone was still intellectually that of a child, it was able to comprehend some of the more simple physics behind the Wreckages massive primary cannon.

 **January 20** **th** **2180 – The Second Systems War finally comes to an end.**

Despite having both a strategic and technological edge on the battlefield, the Alliance suffered heavy casualties when taking the wildcat colonies that helped to supply and reinforce the ICM's war machine. The main reason the Alliance engaged the ICM in ground campaigns at all, was to establish the Human government's moral authority in the war. Liberating the indentured labourers, used as little more than slaves by the terrorist organisation, helped to increase and reinforced the public's desire to remain on the offensive, despite the war entering its second decade.

The Alliance's _Mechanised Armour Regiment_ was utilised heavily throughout all three colony campaigns, with Orbital Drop Troopers and N7's in Orbital Insertion pods, used in tandem to deliver heavily armed shock troops rapidly, in order to disrupt enemy formations and break otherwise impenetrable defensive lines.

After the final three year campaign on the Wildcat colony world of Iroh, which resulted in pyritic victory for the Alliance, the ICM was finally pushed back to its last colony world, their Wildcat Fortresses of New Canton, located in the Roosevelt System.

Projected casualties for attempting to take New Canton exceeded three million servicemen and women, with AIS reports indicating that the number could be even higher. Over the past decade, the ICM had turned the minor Frontier Colony into a veritable fortress, with GTS and GTA defences covering the planet's surface.

AIS intelligence revealed that the majority of the ICM's remaining Navy, including five Battlecruisers, over a hundred Line Cruisers and countless Frigates, had congregated to the system, and had been preparing for a final last stand.

Instead, Alliance Military High-Command made a decision that would be contested and morally argued for over a century, and approved the order of Operation DOWN-FALL.

The controversial Operation first began with an unprecedented fleet action that saw nearly two thirds of the _entire_ SA Navy congregate, before jumping into the Roosevelt System in two consecutive waves.

The remaining ICM fleets were broken within the day, however, extremely heavy GTS fire from the planet's surface and remaining space stations meant that the combined fleet was ordered to surround the colony planet outside effective weapons range.

At 0600 hours, on the 20th of January 2180, Admiral Johnathan Dresher, ordered the fleet's collection of two Dreadnought-Class Heavy Battleships, the _SAV Everest D-1_ and the _SAV_ _Fuji D-2_ , and fifty Battlecruisers (twelve of which's Captains refused, officially protesting against the order, and were later court-martialled), to bombard the planet with two volleys each from extreme range.

The resulting action ended up killing an estimated _six hundred thousand_ suspected civilians, cracked three of the planets tectonic plates, and shattered the planets ecosystem. The bombardment also succeeded in its objective in wiping out the last of the Interplanetary Colonial Militia's governmental and military command staff, and the rest of the remaining ICM forces surrendered within days of the news breaking.

 **March 18** **th** **2182 – {Classified: Cryptic} The Alliance Tuning-Fork Project is quarantined.**

Following the nightmare events uncovered in 2168, perpetrated by indoctrinated scientists of the original Project DARK-SEA, ONII saw fit to implement modified Black-List protocols into all Alliance Standard Virtual Intelligence's graded above the classification level of _Restricted_.

Thirteen years after this was confirmed implemented across the Alliance Command Structure, the security protocols were tripped by Project TUNING-FORK's VI. The heavily classified research project was one of the first to ever be put together, and had been running in near total silence for almost as long as it had been created, with only standard check-ins and routine inspections dissuading deeper investigation.

As per the Black-List protocol, the site and all accompanying branches were immediately quarantined, with indoctrination almost immediately uncovered in the project staff of both the main, and three sub-division branches of the relay project. In response, ONII dispatched several N7 teams, briefed on the previous incident in 2168, to wipe the project staff and recover the projects local servers for detailed analysis.

While the N7 teams uncovered almost exact copies of the madness that occurred in the DARK-SEA Project, they were able to successfully complete their objective and were extracted with the hard data copies of the Project's servers. The project site and all related locations were then purged.

Following an in-depth analysis of the Project's server security data, it was eventually revealed that those scientists who had made physical trips to Relay 182, a Secondary Mass Relay that was discovered in a remote system, and had been sectioned off for the TUNING-FORK Project to study, had been the first to show signs of indoctrination.

This was the first time that the Alliance managed to connect the Mass Relays to the Unknown Wreckage. The hostile nature of the Wreckage, combined with the Alliance's hard reliance on Mass Relays for logistics and infrastructure, deeply troubled the High-Admiralty Board, the (then) Alliance President Hopkins, and both of the Directors for ONII and the AIS.

In direct response to this, the High-Admiralty Board, in unanimous agreement with the (then) Alliance President, and the Director of ONII and the AIS. The originators of the Wreckage and Mass Relays were to be deemed hostile until proven otherwise, and a new combined taskforce of Alliance Assets were put together to investigate further. (This taskforce would later be folded into the assets assigned to Cerberus's first Illusive Man.)

The Tuning-Fork Project, despite its setbacks, was deemed invaluable for eliminating the Alliance's reliance on the Relay Network. Alongside the server data recovered from the site by the N7 teams, a working small-scale prototype was recovered intact, and ONII was quick to assign new Scientists and Engineers to learn how to replicate it, with further orders to continue working on building a largescale version for spaceship transport.

 **May 10** **th** **2182 – The Fourth Wave of Colonisation begins.**

Two years after the end of the Second Systems War, many colonists from war-torn colonies, along with a large quantity of retiring Alliance veterans, were looking to settle down or attempt a fresh start. Friction remains between the Colonies and the Sol System, with the old Wildcat colonies that had been captured from the ICM during the Second Systems War chaffing under the Alliances authority.

With several worlds rendered uninhabitable, more with destroyed infrastructure and those unharmed struggling to bare the weight of millions of homeless and jobless migrants. There was a pressing need within Alliance Parliament for a lift in the temporary ban of relay exploration, and in 2182, the Aurora Act was passed, allowing for Alliance sanctioned companies to open mass relays and venture further out into uncharted space.

In 2184, the garden world of _Elysium_ was discovered, soon after which, it quickly became a central hub of commercial trade. Its system containing two Primary Relays, and a Secondary Relay that was connected to a new Secondary Network, it proved to be highly profitable and militarily advantageous.

Just a year later in 2185, the mineral-rich world of _Horizon_ was discovered, and in 2191, an Earth-like world out at the edge of explored space was discovered, eventually named by its settlers _Shanxi_. All three new worlds providing materials, land and locations needed in order to stabilise the Frontier after the end of the SSW, and help to rebuild the losses the Alliance suffered throughout the long war.

 **October 24** **th** **2206 – {Classified: Restricted} The Beginning of The First Contact War (The F.C.W).**

On October 20th 2206, the Alliance authorised that Relay 314 be opened and a standard exploration team, accompanied by the _SAV Agincourt,_ an Omaha-Class Frigate, sent through to map the other side.

From data recovered from the _Agincourt's_ black-box, it is known that the exploration group made it to the other side of the system before encountering unknown space vessels of alien origin. LADAR scans showed that three Frigate-Class vessels, one Corvette-Class vessel and one Destroyer-Class vessel were present. _{Later confirmed as a standard Empire patrol group of three Light-Class frigates, one Heavy-Class Corvette and one Heavy-Class destroyer.}_

The exploration group attempted to hail the Empire patrol group, but only received silence in response. It is believed that the patrol group's leading Captain was attempting to contact his superiors, however, both the patrol group and the exploration group were at the edges of their territory, and unable to reliably communicate with their respective chains of command.

In what was later discovered to be a predetermined Scenario Order, the Captain of the Empire patrol group gave the order to open fire upon the unarmed exploration vessels, aiming to cripple the small force and capture prisoners to interrogate.

Only realising the danger too late, the first two exploration vessels broke apart under the sustained barrage, their civilian-grade Kinetic Barriers unable to protect them against the Empire's highly precise particle weapons.

The last exploration vessel managed to hide behind the _Agincourt_ , and following Captain Oscar's orders, retreated back to Alliance controlled space, while the lone frigate stayed behind to cover the civilian vessels retreat.

Black-box data confirms that the _Agincourt_ managed two Frigate kills and a glancing blow to the Empire Destroyer before being worn down, torn apart and completely destroyed. All hands confirmed lost.

Traveling through Relay 314, and tracking the surviving exploration vessel's engine trail. It is now understood that the Captain of the Empire patrol group believed that the _Agincourt_ was the only opposition they would face, and that humanity was relatively new to space travel, despite their pyritic victory against the Omaha-Class Frigate.

Intelligence indicates that the patrol group's Corvette was sent back to relay to the Empire what had occurred, while the rest of the surviving patrol group forged onwards. It only took around four hours for long range satellites to pick up the Empire patrol group, who in turn discovered Shanxi.

Instead of attacking immediately, it is understood that the patrol group waited another twelve hours, by which then two other patrol groups arrived as reinforcements. Believing the planet to be humanity's homeworld, and that they are both technologically and intellectually inferior, the combined patrol groups executed an in-system jump to take them into Shanxi's orbit.

Taking out the limited static defences above the Class-C Colony world, the combined patrol groups had more trouble dealing with ground based GTS defences, resorting to orbital bombardment in order to effectively suppress them.

It was by this time that the Empire's Third Patrol Fleet (Fleet Name: _Pannonica_ ) arrived, providing escort for several troop transports, headed by Admiral Arjun Gervais. A well-known and experienced fleet admiral, responsible for the putdown of two separate planetary rebellions and the destruction of four pirate bands.

By the time ground troops were loaded into transports destined for the surface of the colony world, former-Major General Joaquim Williams had taken control of the Alliance garrison that had been stationed planet side, along with several tank crews that had been on the colony surface for routine combat exercises.

With an emergency FTL flash-beacon already sent the moment the surviving exploration vessel had made it into communication range, they were attempting to disperse the relatively large colony population into the surrounding countryside and preparing to engage in guerrilla warfare.

From there on out, the First Contact War truly began in earnest.

 **. . .**

 **END FILE_**

 **Data Encryption Security Protocols – ENDED**

* * *

 **Authors Note:**

Well. It's been a while. Sorry for the wait, but my motivation for getting this done dried up and left me about halfway through my first rendition of this interlude, which was entirely different to what ended up here.

Anyway, long story short, after finally giving up on my motivation ever returning, I instead turned to sheer bloody determination, and I've been slowly grinding out around a page a day, ever since then.

For future note, this is the first of the Interludes that will happen in between each Chapter Arc. They will contain history, science projects and threat indexes, and will serve as world building elements, designed to help expand this universe and provide context to things only briefly mentioned in the main story.

On _another_ note, I've been going back and editing **all** previous chapters (which was where most of my time is being actually spent). I'm not happy with the level of writing quality, and the direction the story's plot was (or in some cases, really wasn't) going in, so things have been, and are being changed. Characters are going to be slightly different, fights are getting edited and changed, and I've made an effort to focus more on other, less originally focused-on characters, which I had previously ignored in favour of Shepard or Liara (whose interest in each other will be something instead discovered in the fourth or fifth arcs, not in the god-damn first).

You'll be able to tell which have been edited by the title header, which will have a '2.0' at the end to display which have been updated. Thank you all for your patience with me, I'm about halfway done, and I will continue to outline and work on the next chapter as well. So there will hopefully be something halfway done by the next month or so.

* * *

 **As always, thank you to everyone for your support, and a big thank you to those who Follow, Favourite or Review. Of course, reviews are my life blood as a writer on this site, and every time my email goes off, it motivates me to write more. Guests can leave one as well, and it only takes a minute, even if it's just a 'Good chapter, keep it up' as it really does help.**

 **If you have questions, or just want to ask whether I'm dead or not, Revenge of the Fallen has a Forum Page, named as such. Please feel free to jump over and ask anything.**

 **~ JunkMail**


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